As the Kerala High Court prepares for Wednesday’s crucial hearing on The Kerala Story 2 – Goes Beyond, producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah has gone on the offensive. In a strongly-worded affidavit submitted before Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas, Shah has called the petitions seeking to block his film’s release “premature, misconceived and not maintainable” — and mounted a direct constitutional challenge to the very idea of judicial pre-censorship.
Kerala Story 2 Producer Pushes Back Hard in High Court
The Kerala High Court continued its hearing on petitions challenging the upcoming release of The Kerala Story 2 – Goes Beyond on Wednesday, with the case drawing national attention for its legal and political dimensions. Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas had taken up the petitions in detail at 3 PM on Tuesday, when the court itself observed that the film appeared to portray Kerala — widely regarded as a model of communal harmony — in a negative light.
That observation set the stage for Shah’s detailed affidavit response.
“CBFC Is the Only Expert, Not the Court”: Shah’s Legal Argument
At the heart of Shah’s defence is a pointed legal argument: the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), constituted under the Cinematograph Act of 1952, is the sole expert authority empowered to examine and certify films for public exhibition. Any attempt by the High Court to reassess the film’s content, he argued, would amount to substituting judicial opinion for expert statutory judgment.
“The supervisory jurisdiction of this court does not extend to substituting its own assessment of a film’s content for the expert judgment of the certifying authority,” Shah stated in his affidavit.
This is not a minor procedural argument. It directly invokes the constitutional limits of judicial review — and echoes the legal reasoning that led the Supreme Court to strike down state bans on the original The Kerala Story in 2023, when both West Bengal and Tamil Nadu attempted to block its screening despite a valid CBFC certificate.
A Pattern Worth Noticing
This is the second time the franchise has faced legal challenges at the pre-release stage. The first film — which went on to gross over ₹340 crore at the box office — survived every legal attempt to suppress it and arguably emerged commercially stronger because of the controversy. Shah and his team are unlikely to be unaware of that history.
The petitioners’ strategy, in that context, carries a risk: judicial scrutiny has historically amplified rather than suppressed controversial Indian films.
What Does “Goes Beyond” Actually Mean?
One detail in Shah’s affidavit deserves attention. Regarding the film’s full title — The Kerala Story 2 – Goes Beyond — he stated that the phrase “Goes Beyond” was “not decorative.” This suggests the sequel is deliberately positioned as an expansion of scope, not merely a continuation of narrative. Whether that means a wider geographical canvas, a broader set of social issues, or a more ambitious legal argument embedded in the storytelling itself remains to be seen.
Shah also flatly denied all allegations made in the petitions, calling them “an abuse and misuse of the process of law” — language that signals the makers have no intention of negotiating or softening the film’s content ahead of release.
What Happens Next
Wednesday’s hearing before Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas is expected to be decisive in the short term. The court must now determine whether the petitions have sufficient legal merit to proceed — or whether, as Shah argues, they collapse at the threshold of maintainability itself.
If the court declines to intervene, The Kerala Story 2 could be headed to theatres without further legal obstruction. If it issues any interim stay or directive, the case will almost certainly travel upward to the Supreme Court — following the exact trajectory of its predecessor.
Either way, the Kerala High Court is now at the centre of a debate that goes well beyond one film’s release.
The Kerala Story 2 case is shaping up as more than a film controversy — it’s a live test of where judicial authority ends and creative freedom begins in India. Whatever the court decides on Wednesday, the legal and cultural reverberations will outlast the film’s first weekend.
