New Delhi, March 19 :     The Delhi High Court today appointed a three-member committee to investigate the ?adverse effects? of the controversial serial Shaktimaan on children. The court said till the committee?s report was submitted ? the panel has been given four weeks ? the serial was to be telecast in a ?restrained? form. The court order came on a petition by Mukesh Khanna, producer and hero of the serial, challenging a Doordarshan notification in January terminating the telecast of Shaktimaan. The committee is to be headed by the former chief justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court, Leila Seth, and the other members will be Vibha Parthasarathy, chairperson of the National Commission for Women, and journalist Dilip Padgaonkar. Seth had also headed the inquiry into industrialist Rajan Pillai?s death in prison. Bhishma International, the production company of Mukesh Khanna, had contended that there was a sustained and baseless campaign against the serial, leading to the Doordarshan notification. Mandi House argued there was a clause in its contract with Khanna ? signed on September 5, 1997 ? that either party could give a month?s notice to stop the telecast, and the notification against Shaktimaan was issued in January. The contract was for 104 episodes. Doordarshan said the termination notice was issued following media reports about the ?ill effect? of the serial on children. Mandi House, too, had got about 30 complaints, it was said. According to the complaints annexed with the Doordarshan affidavit, children tried to imitate Shaktimaan who has supernatural powers. Some of the media reports have spoken of children risking their lives or even killing themselves trying to emulate the screen hero or hoping he would come and rescue them. Bhishma International replied that the ?purported reports? started appearing only since November last year, indicating a campaign against the production by vested interests. Khanna?s counsel Arun Jaitley submitted that the media reports were found to be ?concocted? and the incidents reported had no connection with the serial. The counsel added that there were no such reports during the first 16 months of the serial?s telecast. The court rejected Doordarshan?s arguments, observing that since no independent survey on these supposed adverse effects had been carried out, assessment by a committee was mandatory. The next hearing is on April 25, by which time the committee will have submitted its report, on the basis of which the serial?s fate would be decided.