Mumbai, June 11: A Pune court today banned the release of a film on Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse.

The order came on a PIL #filed last year by a Pune-based activist, Hemant Patil. The order was passed ex parte by civil magistrate K.M. Pingle, as the defendants did not appear before the court despite repeated notices.

The film, being produced by the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, was in the post-production stage. Tentatively titled Deshbhakt Nathuram Godse, it was originally slated to release on January 30. Godse had shot Gandhi on January 30, 1948.

Patil's lawyer Wajid Khan said this was the fifth time in a row that the defendants had not appeared in the court.

"We brought in the PIL as this film was likely to incite communal violence as the Hindu Mahasabha had said that it would show that Godse... was a patriot while Gandhi was anti-Hindu."

Last December, Maharashtra's BJP chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had issued a stern warning against any attempt to honour Godse. "We will take strict administrative action if any such attempt is made," he had said in the Assembly in response to a question on the film.