Karan Johar, Deepika, Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor among 14 booked for ‘AIB Roast’

The FIR was ordered by Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate C S Baviskar of Girgaum Court based on a complaint by social activist Santosh Daundkar, who approached the court after the police failed to act on a written complaint.

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“We have registered the FIR as ordered by the court under the relevant sections which would be investigated,” said S Jaykumar, deputy commissioner of police (Zone 3).

According to the complaint that Daundkar’s lawyer Abha Singh submitted to the court, the Bollywood celebrities present at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium where the show was held had cracked “pre-scripted, vulgar, pornographic and obscene jokes”. Singh said these words were spoken in front of a large number of women in open defiance of Indian laws.

The court ordered the FIR to be filed under Section 156 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code, under which a magistrate can order the police to investigate a case about which he receives a complaint.

The 14 persons named in the complaint include president of the National Sports Club of India (NSCI) Jayantilal Shah, NSCI secretary general Ravinder Aggarwal, organisers of the show, film critic Rajeev Masand, stand-up comedians Rohan Joshi, Tanmay Bhatt, Gursimran Khamba, Ashish Shakya and Aditi Mittal, among others. The NSCI manages the stadium where the programme was held.

The sections under which the police will initiate investigation include Section 120-b (criminal conspiracy), Sections 294, 509 (obscene acts or words in a public place, act intended to outrage a woman’s modesty) of the IPC and Section 67 and 66 A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (circulation of obscene content on the Internet). Singh also cited provisions of the Bombay Police Act 1951, Section 15 of the Environment Protection Act, 1986 (illegal change of use of Coastal Regulation Zone area) and the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Singh said, “The entire programme was pre-scripted and preplanned. Even actresses Deepika and Alia Bhatt who were in the audience might have been given scripts and cues to laugh. Now the police should seize the script, computers and other documents related to the show.”

Singh said that apart from the 14 people named in the complaint, others involved in pre-planning of the show could face investigation too.

The complainant in the case, Daundkar, has been involved in several high-profile litigations in the past, including the Adarsh Society case, the case on the purchase of bullet-proof jackets for Mumbai Police after the 26/11 terror attacks and the Hiranandani Powai case on urban land ceiling violations. He has also approached the Brihanmumbai Municipal Complaints with complaints that made headlines, including one on alleged violations in the construction of Mannat, Shah Rukh Khan’s bungalow in Bandra.

The FIR comes two days after the Bombay High Court asked the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to file its say on the screening mechanism of YouTube uploads during the hearing of a petition filed by a law professor. The petition sought guidelines for a screening mechanism to keep a check on obscene and vulgar videos uploaded on YouTube.

Earlier, the Bund Garden police station in Pune had registered an FIR against AIB for the Roast.

The show was held in front of 4,000 people at a stadium in Worli on January 20. The show was reportedly held for charity. An edited version of the show was uploaded on YouTube, where it clocked over three million views.