A court issued arrest warrants for Hollywood actor Richard Gere and Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty on Thursday, saying their kiss at a public function “transgressed all limits of vulgarity“.
Judge Dinesh Gupta issued the warrants in the northwestern city of Jaipur after a local citizen filed a complaint charging that the public display of affection offended local sensibilities, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Gupta earlier viewed television footage of the event, which he called “highly sexually erotic,” saying the pair violated India’s strict public obscenity laws.
Gere and Shetty “transgressed all limits of vulgarity and have the tendency to corrupt the society,” PTI quoted the judge as saying.
Such cases against celebrities - often filed by publicity seekers - are common in conservative India. They add to a backlog of legal cases that has nearly crippled the country’s judicial system.
Gere left India shortly after the kissing incident and it was not immediately clear how the warrant would affect him.
Gere is a frequent visitor to India, promoting health issues and the cause of Tibetan exiles. The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has his headquarters in the north Indian town of Dharmsala.
Under Indian law a person convicted of public obscenity faces up to three months in prison, a fine, or both.
Last week, crowds in several Indian cities burned effigies of the 57-year-old star of “An Officer and a Gentleman,” “American Gigolo” and “Pretty Woman” after he embraced Shetty and kissed her several times on her cheeks during an HIV/AIDS awareness event in the Indian capital.
Photographs of the clinch were then splashed across front pages in India - where public displays of affection are largely taboo.
The judge lambasted Shetty for not resisting Gere’s kisses and ordered her to appear in his court May 5, PTI said. A spokesman for Shetty declined comment.
The event’s organizer, Parmeshwar Godrej, called the controversy a distraction from more important issues.
“It has detracted from and undermined the value and success of the event, which was concerned with creating AIDS awareness and promoting AIDS prevention among truck drivers,” CNN-IBN quoted her as saying.
Shetty, 31, has said the embrace was not obscene and that the media should instead focus on HIV/AIDS awareness.
“I understand this is his culture, not ours. But this was not such a big thing or so obscene for people to overreact in such manner,” she told PTI last week.
“I understand people’s sentiments, but I don’t want a foreigner to take bad memories from here,” PTI quoted her as saying.
Shetty, already well-known in India, became an international star after her appearance on the British reality show “Celebrity Big Brother” - another controversial public appearance. A fellow contestant, Jade Goody, sparked international headlines by making allegedly racist comments to Shetty. Mobs took to the streets of India to denounce Goody, and Shetty went on to win the competition.
He may have a reputation as a ladies man - but Richard Gere is now public enemy number one in India. Maybe he should have stopped with kissing her hand.
Effigies of the Hollywod actor have been burned after he repeatedly kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at an AIDS awareness event.
He had joined Shetty, the winner of the “Celebrity Big Brother” in a safe sex campaign for lorry drivers.
The 58-year-old shouted in Hindi to thousands of truck drivers who roared with delight and whistled loudly as Gere swooped down to kiss Shetty to kiss her on her hand and a number of times on one side of her face.
But it started to go wrong when groups of men turned on him and started shouting “Down with Richard Gere”.
They burnt the Hollywood star’s effigies and kicked the smoking remains in the northern Indian cities of Kanpur, Meerut and Varanasi as well as in the central city of Indore.
The protesters said Gere’s kissing of Shilpa was against Indian culture.
Some burnt Shetty’s posters, shouting “Death to Shilpa Shetty”, and danced around the smouldering ashes, TV footage showed.
The kissing scenes were repeatedly being run on TV news channels with viewers commenting on the Hollywood star’s actions.
Others said there was too much fuss over a few kisses.
“I think he responded as an actor. He was playing to the gallery,” said Anjali Gopalan, head of Naz Foundation India, an anti-AIDS prevention and care group.
“I don’t see anything bad,” she said on Headlines Today television.
Shetty’s spokesman said TV networks were going overboard.
“The media should concentrate on promotion of the cause of AIDS awareness rather than make ‘issues’ out of Richard Gere’s kisses,” Dale Bhagwagar said.
The Shilpa Shetty frenzy is still sweeping the globe, two days after her release from the Big Brother house. Today the UK Papers reveal Shilpa’s reactions after seeing the full extent of the bullying she endured in the house. She squirmed and held back the tears as she witnessed on film how several contestants sneered hurtful comments behind her back.
I didn’t know all that had gone on. They are so mean. Why didn’t someone stop them? It hurts me deeply. Look at me…I’m shaking.
After reliving Jades attack, she then witnessed Danielle say “that was f**king fantastic, that made my day” and later “she cant even speak English properly.”
Shilpa’s response was to shout at the film:
I speak 10 languages and I think my English is great…It isn’t just one or two attacks - its incessant.
Shilpa praised herself for keeping her dignity throughout her stay in the house. As she left Big Brother she was still unaware of the uproar the Shipla debate caused in India, and the Channel 4 offices.
Britain’s media on Saturday welcomed the eviction of a reality TV show contestant accused of racism and bullying, but criticized the television channel over a show that has whipped up an international storm.
“Celebrity Big Brother” has dominated headlines in Britain and India this week after former dental nurse Jade Goody and other contestants ganged up on Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, calling her “the Indian” and “Poppadom” and saying “She should fuck off home.”
Britain’s media watchdog received around 40,000 complaints from viewers, top politicians weighed into the row and a major sponsor of the program withdrew its backing.
Internet chat rooms have been abuzz with debate about whether what was said on the show constituted racism, and to what extent Goody and her allies reflected prejudices in society at large. Many people felt the story was exaggerated by the media.
The show’s producers said 82 percent of voters had chosen Londoner Goody for eviction over the other nominee, Shetty, in what may be seen as a stand against racial intolerance.
A contrite Goody, 25, denied she was a racist or a bully in her post-eviction interview late on Friday, when the extent of the controversy was revealed to her for the first time.
Contestants are sealed off from the outside world in a house where cameras follow their every move 24 hours a day.
“I can’t dignify myself because that video footage of myself is nasty,” she said. “I’m not going to sit here and try and justify myself. Yes, I said those things and they were nasty.
“I am not a racist and I sincerely … apologize to anybody I’ve offended out there.”
Goody rose to fame after taking part in a non-celebrity version of “Big Brother” in 2002, and suggested even before leaving the house that she would pay a price for her behavior.
“It was the beginning of my career and it’s the end of my career,” she said.
CHANNEL 4 UNDER FIRE
Mass-circulation newspapers aimed their headlines at Goody, with the Sun declaring “Goody Riddance” and the Mirror saying “A Bigot and a Fake.”
But they also had harsh words for Channel 4, which airs the show, and the production company Endemol, saying Goody’s exit appeared to have been stage managed.
They also criticized the decision to ban the crowds that traditionally greet evictees outside the Big Brother house, and to cancel a press conference.
Channel 4, which saw viewing figures jump by over 2 million after the furor erupted, had been under pressure to act.
A poll conducted for the Guardian newspaper suggested that most people thought the channel should have intervened to protect Shetty. Some 55 percent believed the insults directed at the 31-year-old Indian film star were not typical of modern Britain.
But Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, saw the show as evidence of a wider problem.
“This program has laid bare the dark heart of private prejudice that all too often sits behind the public veneer of tolerance,” he said this week.
Commentators reflected on a week in which events on a reality television contest dominated the news and triggered a serious debate about racism and bullying.
“BB (Big Brother) satisfies our taste for cruelty,” wrote David Aaronovitch in a commentary in the Times. “But what is so odd is that to discuss real things we have to make them unreal first, and then describe them as reality.”
Judge Dinesh Gupta issued the warrants in the northwestern city of Jaipur after a local citizen filed a complaint charging that the public display of affection offended local sensibilities, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Gere and Shetty “transgressed all limits of vulgarity and have the tendency to corrupt the society,” PTI quoted the judge as saying.
Effigies of the Hollywod actor have been burned after he repeatedly kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at an AIDS awareness event. 
