Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment has responded to Sameer Wankhede’s defamation suit over a scene in Aryan Khan’s show The Ba***ds of Bollywood. They claimed that while the show depicts an overzealous officer, it does not reference the Cordelia cruise case. IRS officer Sameer Wankhede pleaded in the Delhi High Court seeking an interim injunction on Aryan Khan’s series. Responding to Wankhede’s claims, senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, appearing for Red Chillies said that satire and fiction can co-exist.
“Can satire and fiction co-exist? There is no law that it cannot co-exist. I may be partly inspired by real persons and stories, yet there can be disclaimers, no problem with two existing together. Where is the ill-will or malice? This is about a success story in a Bollywood party. We are not looking at people who are sensitive; hurt is not ground for malice. Can you pick a stray instance, a passage here or there? The series is about 20 different issues. We do not show a documentary on the Cordelia cruise incident. I am inspired by overzealous officers. That is far from saying that this is the Cordelia cruise story.”
For the uninitiated, in 2021, Wankhede who was with the Narcotics Control Bureau, arrested Aryan Khan from the Cordellia cruise over a drugs case. However, Khan’s name was cleared later, and he was released from jail. In his show, there is a scene where an inspector from a fictional anti-narcotics agency arrests an actor over a false drug case. Wankhede argued that the officer shown in the show resembles him and urged that the scene should be removed from the show.
He continued, “You cannot say that the person depicting ills in Bollywood cannot show overzealous officers. I cannot be responsible for what other people say… I am fully entitled to depict issues ailing Bollywood. Even if I am to project someone, a public official cannot be that thin-skinned. Even if I portray you unjustly it is still not a case. Every scene in this show is exaggerated. I am not ridiculing him or the emblem. I am talking about officials who have lofty idea.”
