MP High Court refuses to block release of Shah Bano-inspired film Haq

Post by : Mina Rahman

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has declined a request from Siddiqua Begum Khan, daughter of Shah Bano Begum, seeking to prevent the release of the Hindi film Haq. Starring Yami Gautam Dhar and Emraan Hashmi, the movie is reportedly inspired by Shah Bano’s life and the pivotal 1985 legal battle that affirmed divorced Muslim women’s entitlement to maintenance.

Siddiqua Begum Khan had moved the court for an interim stay, contending that makers proceeded without her family’s approval and that the picture distorted intimate aspects of her late mother’s life. She argued the film commercially exploited Shah Bano’s persona and invaded her family’s privacy.

Justice Pranay Verma of the Indore bench dismissed these objections, observing, “Privacy or reputation earned by a person during his or her lifetime extinguishes with his or her death. It cannot be inherited like a movable or immovable property.”

The bench also noted the film’s disclaimer, pointing out that Haq is presented as a dramatization, a fictional work adapted from a book and inspired by a Supreme Court judgment. The court said that, as an adaptation and a work of fiction, the film is entitled to a degree of creative latitude and that the present record does not demonstrate fabrication or sensational misrepresentation.

Directed by Suparn S Verma, Haq revisits the 1985 Shah Bano judgment on women’s maintenance rights. Shah Bano, then 62, first petitioned in 1978 seeking maintenance from her divorced husband, Mohammed Ahmed Khan, who was a practising lawyer. The Supreme Court ruled in her favour under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code in 1985, a decision later effectively undercut by subsequent legislation.

The film is slated to reach theatres on November 7, 2025.