A Public Interest Litigation has been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking the removal of the song “Shoorveer” from the climax of “Mirzapur: The Movie,” the petitioner contending that a track originally composed as a tribute to Maharana Pratap has been used over gangster scenes in a way that glorifies criminals and hurts public sentiment.
New Delhi: A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed before the Delhi High Court seeking the removal of the song “Shoorveer,” used in the climax of the recently-released film “Mirzapur: The Movie,” on the ground that the track, said to have been originally composed as a tribute to the historical icon Maharana Pratap, has been deployed over scenes glorifying gangsters [Prashant Kumar Singh v. Union of India and Others].
The petition has been moved by one Prashant Kumar Singh, through Advocates Shashank and Shashwat. The contentions set out below are those of the petitioner; the PIL has only been filed and is yet to be heard, and nothing has been adjudicated by the Court.
What the PIL contends
The core of the petitioner’s grievance is the alleged mismatch between the song’s origins and its use in the film. According to the plea, “Shoorveer” was originally composed as a reverential tribute to Maharana Pratap, and its placement in the climax of a film centred on the criminal underworld, over sequences depicting gangsters, distorts that reverential character and amounts to a glorification of crime and violence. On the petitioner’s case, associating a devotional or patriotic composition with the celebration of gangsters offends public sentiment and the memory of the historical figure the song is said to honour.
The PIL, as reported, seeks directions for the removal of the song from the film. Such petitions typically array the Union Government and the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) among the respondents, alongside the producers, given that the relief sought touches the certification and exhibition of a film already cleared for release.
A separate copyright dispute over the same song
The PIL is not the only controversy the song has generated. Separately, the Rajasthani artist known as Rapperiya Baalam (Ashok Manda) is reported to have sent a legal notice to Excel Entertainment and the film’s producers over what is alleged to be the unauthorised use of “Shoorveer.” On the artist’s side, it is contended that although the track was released on a music label’s channel, the original copyright and associated certificates stand in the artist’s name, and that the producers ought to have verified the true ownership of the rights before including the song in the film. This is a distinct, contractual-and-copyright grievance, separate from the PIL’s public-sentiment challenge, and it too remains an allegation at the notice stage.
“Mirzapur: The Movie,” a theatrical adaptation of the popular streaming series, was produced by Excel Entertainment and Amazon MGM Studios and released in early September 2026. The two disputes, one over the song’s alleged desecration of a patriotic tribute, the other over the ownership of its rights, have converged to make a single climax track the subject of both a writ petition and a copyright notice.
The legal questions such a challenge raises
A PIL of this kind sits at the intersection of the right to creative and artistic expression and the various restrictions that may lawfully be placed on it. The freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) extends to films and to artistic works, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that once a film has been certified by the CBFC, courts are generally slow to interfere with its exhibition, and that the standard is that of a reasonable, strong-minded viewer rather than the most sensitive. Creative works, the Court has observed, cannot be held hostage to the threat of offence, and the remedy for those who dislike a film’s content ordinarily lies in not watching it, not in its suppression.
At the same time, courts do examine complaints that a work crosses into the reasonable restrictions permitted under Article 19(2), or that it infringes other rights. Where the objection is, as here, that a composition has been used in a manner said to distort its character and hurt sentiment, a court will weigh that against the certification already granted and the high threshold for restraining a certified film. The parallel copyright claim, by contrast, raises a straightforward question of ownership and licensing, whether the producers had the rights to use the track, which turns on documents rather than sentiment. How the Delhi High Court responds to the PIL, whether it entertains it, issues notice, or declines to interfere with a certified film, will indicate where this particular challenge falls on that spectrum. Nothing has yet been decided; the PIL is at the threshold, and the allegations on both the sentiment and the copyright fronts remain untested.
The matter is expected to be listed before the Delhi High Court in due course. LawChakra will report developments as and when the Court takes up the petition.
Case Title: Prashant Kumar Singh v. Union of India and Others (PIL, as filed)
Court: Delhi High Court