New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday has reserved its order on a plea by IRS officer and former NCB zonal director Sameer Wankhede seeking to restrain the streaming of the Netflix series “The Ba***ds of Bollywood”, produced by Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment, which he has termed defamatory.
Wankhede has sought an interim injunction directing that the series be taken down from various platforms, arguing that it maligns his reputation and portrays anti-drug enforcement agencies in a misleading and negative light, thereby eroding public confidence in law-enforcement institutions. After hearing all sides, Justice Purushaindra Kaurav framed two issues for consideration at this stage: whether the defamation suit is maintainable in Delhi, and whether the impugned depiction, taken as a whole and in context, prima facie crosses the line from protected artistic expression into actionable harm to Wankhede’s reputation.
Wankhede’s counsel argued that Delhi has jurisdiction because some of his relatives who watched the series reside in the capital, departmental proceedings against him are pending here, and several media houses that published reports on him are based in the city. Red Chillies Entertainment and Netflix opposed this, contending that the case properly lies in Mumbai, where Wankhede lives and the production house is registered, and accusing him of “forum-shopping” by choosing Delhi for convenience rather than legal necessity.
Netflix maintained that the show is a work of satire and dark comedy that broadly critiques Bollywood culture, paparazzi, nepotism and related controversies, and that a brief satirical sequence cannot alone sustain a defamation claim at the interim stage. It argued that the legal threshold for defamation is high, particularly in matters of artistic expression, and that any alleged damage to reputation must be established in a full trial rather than presumed at the stage of an injunction. Red Chillies similarly said satire is a legitimate form of artistic and social commentary permitted under law.
In his rejoinder, Wankhede alleged that the “defamatory content” was conceived to settle personal scores and exact revenge for the 2021 Cordelia cruise drugs case in which Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was arrested while he headed the NCB Mumbai zonal unit. He claimed the series, written and directed by Aryan, was orchestrated to target and vilify him and has sought Rs 2 crore in damages, which he says should be donated to Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital for cancer patients.
The High Court had earlier issued notices and summons to Red Chillies Entertainment, Netflix, X Corp, Google, Meta Platforms, RPSG Lifestyle Media and “John Doe” parties on Wankhede’s defamation suit, asking them to file replies within a week. The plea also objects to a scene where a character shows the middle finger immediately after uttering the slogan “Satyamev Jayate”, part of the National Emblem, alleging that it amounts to an insult to national honour and violates the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, attracting penal consequences. The court will now pronounce its order on the interim relief at a later date.
(Inputs from PTI)