NEW DELHI, February 6: A canadian film making company, shooting a film Earth based on a story about 1947 partition in the famous Lodhi Gardens here, was on Thursday told not infringe the rights of the citizens to visit the park by erecting any temporary structure and not to cause any damage to the monument within the park and its pathways. The film is directed by Deepa Mehta with Aamir Khan in the starcast.While allowing the company, Cracking the Earth Film Inc, to resumed its shooting after a day, a Division Bench comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice M K Sharma directed the police to ensure that the company adhered to all its undertakings including that of not crowding the parking lot with its vehicles.
The court asked the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), Archaelogical Survey of India and police to file their reply affidavits detailing as to under what power the permission was granted to the film company to shoot at Lodhi Garden and what steps were taken to ensure minimum inconvenienceto public.
NDMC had given permission to the film company, which had produced the much acclaimed film Fire, after taking a rental of Rs 60,000 for three day schedule. The company further said that a loss of $ 85,000 per day would accrue to it in the event of non-shooting.
``Prima facie we are of the view that interim arrangement deserves to be made to ensure that as far as possible there is no serious impairment of citizen's right and at the same time the shooting by the Canadian company may go on since as of now they have such a permission from NDMC,'' the Bench said.
An affidavit filed by Elizabeth Anne Masson, director of the company, gave an undertaking before the court assuring that it would do everything that was required to be done so that no inconvenience was caused to the users of the garden.
The high court had stayed the shooting of the film at Lodhi Garden on Wednesday on a petition by non-governmental organisation `Green Circle', which alleged that the company had parked eight to ninetrucks/vans/buses in the parking lot and the shooting procedure was causing obstruction to the regular visitors to the park.
Counsel for the petitioner, Y P Narula and Abhijit Chatterjee, said the larger question of whether such permission could be granted by NDMC and what safeguards were to be taken to ensure minimum inconvenience to visitors had to be examined.
The petition states that the film crew brought heavy equipment including generators into the park, pitched tents and even cooked food there, which is against the norms. Moreover, it points out that this is the first time that shooting was allowed inside the tomb of Sikandar Lodhi.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
