Mukesh Bhatt to face trial for Fareb

Thirteen years after the release of the film, Fareb, its producer Mukesh Bhatt will have to face trial for allegedly showing uncensored prints of the film in cinema halls. The Bombay High Court on Friday rejected Bhatt’s application seeking discharge in the case.
If convicted, Bhatt could face a maximum jail term of 3 years.

In1996, the film starring Milind Gunaji-Suman Ranganathan was released with an ‘A’ certificate. In Solapur, acting on oral complaints, the district magistrate ordered an inspection of the movie prints being shown in cinema halls. At an inspection of Bhagwati Cinema on August 15, it was found that the uncensored version of the film was being screened.

An offence under the Cinematograph Act, 1952, was registered against Bhatt and three others. The Censor Board, in its letter of September 2006, also stated that five of the nine deleted scenes had been re-introduced in the print seized from Solapur.

Additional public prosecutor Hitendra Dedhia argued that Bhatt being the producer of the film was responsible for ensuring that only the censored prints were sent out to cinema halls.

Pretti Jain seeks discharge: Actor Pretti Jain has filed an application in the Bombay High Court, seeking discharge in a 2005 case in which she is accused of allegedly engaging a hitman to kill director
Madhur Bhandarkar. Jain was arrested in September 2005 on charges of giving a supari (contract) of Rs75,000 to Naresh Pardeshi, an aide of gangster-turned-politician Arun Gawli. In her application, Jain has pleaded innocence and alleged that Bhandarkar, against whom she has filed a rape case, used his underworld contacts to frame her in a false case.