Bharathiraja is an Indian film director who works mainly in the Tamil film industry. Making his debut in 1977 with 16 Vayathinile, he is known for realistic and sensitive portrayals of rural life in his films. He is popular for Telugu audiences with the success of many movies which also includes Seethakoka Chiluka. Now, a complaint against him had been filed by a Hindu Makkal Munnani office-bearer. The FIR comes a month after the Madras High Court granted him anticipatory bail in another such case that was similar to the current one.

The Chennai Police booked him under sections related to attempting to provoke and cause a riot. The director allegedly termed Lord Ganesha as an “imported God” while addressing a public gathering in January.

As per sources, acclaimed directors Bharathiraja and Bala are indulged in a war over the rights of ‘Kutra Parambarai’ book.

Bharathi Raja is regarded as one senior director who played the key role in changing the Tamil cinema. Bala also has brought revolution in Tamil cinema with few sensational films. Now, it is said that he is in a war with Bharathi Raja for the rights of ‘Kutrparamparai’ book to make a movie.

It is said that after working on the script based on the book for few years, Bharathi Raja prepared the script and is now looking for a production house to back it. Suddenly, Bala entered the scene, and he also intends to make the film on the same book.

When the senior director called Bala, he informed him that he got the rights of the book from the writer itself.

The scandal and controversy surrounding this Kerala state film awards have reached a crescendo, with now the legal system involved as well and the High Court issuing notice to the key people involved.

The key people now just happen to be Bharathiraja, the legendary film maker and chairman of the jury this year, other jury members, chairman of the Chalachithra Academy, Cultural Secretary and others of this stature!

This is, without a doubt, an embarrassment of epic proportions and casts a huge shadow over the entire industry, especially the system of awarding such recognitions.
For those of you still unaware of the actual scandal, let’s recap shall we..

After this year’s awards were declared, many cried foul over what they thought was an unfair judgement of several talents, including Suraj Venjaaramoodu who won the national award for best actor but only won the best comedian award at the state level. There were other “ignored talents” too.

There were accusations that arose even then that jury had neglected to watch all 85 of the movies, which was the total number of candidates in all the categories put together.

But this turned serious when a zealous young film maker, utilized the Right to Information Act to get his hands on documents regarding the jury members and their itineraries and figured out that Bharathiraja, for example, had only stayed half of the required time in Kerala, at the capital city, as was mandated by the rules of the award system, to spend time watching the movies on the list.

When called out on this however, the iconic director and the other members of the jury kept trying to convince the public that they watched all the movies and that their judgement was fair.

Now though, further analysis of the documents has revealed that they watched only maybe 35 of the 85 movies at best. The producer of the movie Perariyathavar, Anilkumar Ambalakkara, filed a case against the jury members and those who supported their blatant lies, for defrauding the public.

The High Court has admitted the petition and the issue of notice is a result of this. The Court has asked the defendants to respond within ten days and has asked that the awards be kept suspended until then.

A truly shameful moment for the industry at large; it seems lying to the public and inept and incompetent service are rampant at all levels and areas of Government run departments, including those that deal with the arts.

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