Run scissors on ‘obscene’ Bigg Boss, plea urges Telangana high court

HYDERABAD: Charging the reality show Bigg Boss Telugu with promoting obscenity, vulgarity and immoral activities besides encouraging abusive behavioural patterns and misguiding young people, a public interest petition was filed in the Telangana high court on Tuesday urging the court to ensure that every episode is censored properly.
The petitioner, K Jagadishwar Reddy of Hyderabad, sought a stay on the show till the authorities put in place a mechanism for daily censorship of the show’s episodes.“The third season of the reality show is scheduled to commence from July 21 and there is every need to restrain Maa TV and Annapurna Studios director and Tollywood hero Akkineni Nagarjuna,” the petitioner said.
Raising an issue with the show which confines all contestants in a house fitted with live cameras recording all their actions, the petitioner said that the contestants had been lured with promises of money and fame while they became objects of amusement for viewers over a short space of time.
“The show broadcasts all that is happening inside this house. All inmates are locked inside the house for 100 days. The organisers also encourage the inmates to conspire against each other and demand the participants to inflict physical and emotional injuries on fellow contestants. The participant who hurts most will be recognised and rewarded and this is against the norms of civilised society,” he said and urged the court to declare such shows as illegal. “It sets a wrong precedent and misleads society,” the petitioner added.
He questioned as to why such reality shows are not censored like feature films which are allowed to be broadcast only after obtaining a certificate from censors. “The organisers of this show must not be allowed to release unfiltered and unchecked content in a whimsical manner. Such unabashed show of unrestricted content will damage the impressionable and sensitive minds of young people,” the petitioner said and mentioned complaints filed by two women who had faced harassment by the organisers.
“If such TV shows and its organisers were allowed to operate freely, this is what happens and hence there is a need to keep a check on them,” he said. Two FIRs had been registered against the organisers in Banjara Hills and Rayadurgam police stations. In another development, Abhishek Mukherji, one of the organisers of the show had approached the high court with a petition to quash the two FIRs filed against him by the two women.