Even as it allowed him to do so, the division bench of Justice M B Ghodeswar and Justice S Radhakrishnan refused to grant the producers ``liberty to pursue other means under law''.

In fact, when counsel for the producer, Piyush Shah, argued that bowing to the CBFC, 90 per cent of the film had been reshot and that he might approach the CBFC again, Justice Radhakrishnan insisted that he read out aloud the verdict of Justice Lentin of the Appellate Tribunal of the CBFC as the latter had rejected his appeal in March 1999.

Amid great embarassment, the counselread out the paragraphs that said:... the film shows women in a degrading and denigrating manner... either as helpless victims of lust or violence or as mindless decorations on dynamic males... the women are shown as sex objects without any morals...''

The counsel, then, reading the sentence, ``the camera focuses on cleavages and bare thighs'', stumbled over the words, saying, ``the camera focuses on so and so'', as the courtroom burst into laughter.

``If you find it difficult to read, how can you seek liberty for the film,'' Justice Radhakrishnan asked. The counsel argued that the film's name had been retained, hence he should be allowed to go to the CBFC again. The bench however refused to grant him any liberty.

Piyush Shah had moved the high court in April 1999, after the CBFC, finding the film, ``vulgar and offensive'' refused to certify it. Shah had shot the film in two languages, Hindi and English. In his petition, the petitioners had claimed that the film was ``relevant to the present times'' andhad a story of a woman who is raped and tormented, who wreaks revenge on her tormentors and then commits suicide.

The petition claimed that films with similar themes, like Insaaf Ka Tarazu had got past the censors with an `A' certificate. The petition had also added that if such censorious attitudes had to be taken, Vyas's Mahabharata should be the first to attract the provisions since Draupadi, in the mythological epic, had been publicly disrobed and needed divine intervention to protect her modesty.

The film had travelled from the Examining Committee (EC) of the CBFC to the Appellate Tribunal, which had two separate viewings of the two films in English and Hindi (which are identical except for six songs in the Hindi film), and rejected the appeals. Agreeing with the unanimous observations of the EC, the Appellate Tribunal noted that ``the language of the film was coarse, scenes were vulgar and nauseating, and the theme and the treatment of the film was beyond redemption''.