The Kerala High Court on Friday lifted the interim stay on the release of Kamakhya Narayan Singh’s film The Kerala Story 2, allowing its release.

The division bench of S.A. Dharmadhikari and P.V. Balakrishnan lifted the stay imposed by a single-judge bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas.

On Thursday, Justice Thomas had halted the film’s release for 15 days, directing the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to reconsider complaints filed against it.

The petitions claimed the film’s title, teaser, and trailer misrepresented Kerala and could provoke violence.

Justice Thomas noted “the possibility of communal disharmony or denigration of a community also being prima facie involved in the movie”, and held that its release without scrutiny by higher authorities would be legally improper.

The court further observed that the content of the film’s teaser has “a prima facie potential to distort public perception and disturb communal harmony”.

On Thursday night, the film’s producer, Vipul Amrutlal Shah, moved an appeal before a division bench comprising Justices S.A. Dharmadhikari and P.V Balakrishnan.

Representing the producer, senior advocates Neeraj Kishan Kaul and Elvin Peter argued that the petitioners lacked legal standing and that a CBFC-certified film carries a presumption of validity.

They stressed that ‘resting a film before release is an extreme restriction on free speech and would cause major commercial losses.’

Though the court is yet to give a verdict of the case, The Kerala Story 2 is relieved for its release, including international screenings.

Starring Ulka Gupta, Aditi Bhatia and Aishwarya Ojha, The Kerala Story 2: Goes Beyond is a sequel to the 2023 film The Kerala Story.

The trailer for the sequel was released by the makers on February 17.

The original film, which bagged two awards at the 71st National Film Awards, revolves around Shalini (Adah Sharma), a young Hindu woman from Kerala, who converted to Islam and became a terrorist.

She befriended Asifa (Sonia Balani), an Islamic extremist, who manipulated her into abandoning her identity. Shalini’s life spirals out of control as she’s trafficked to Syria and groomed to become a suicide bomber.