Gere: Court move

New Delhi, Jan. 24: Richard Gere has urged the Supreme Court to stay non-bailable arrest warrants against him in the obscenity cases over the Shilpa Shetty kiss so that he can visit India unhindered for charity work.

In a petition filed through lawyer Naveen R. Nath, the Hollywood star argued that the warrants issued by the Jodhpur and Alwar courts in Rajasthan would not allow him to carry on with the work of the Gere Foundation.

The first court had issued the warrant while the second had restrained him from leaving India.

The apex court had stayed the proceedings in these cases on Shilpa’s pleas, but the warrants against Gere are still out.

“The applicant (Gere), unfortunately, finds himself being victimised and harassed through motivated complaints filed by the respondents, all of whom are lawyers by profession,” the petition said.

The Gere Foundation has started the Heroes Project in India to fight AIDS. It was during one of the foundation’s events in Delhi last April — aimed at raising awareness about the disease among truck drivers — that Gere kicked up a storm when he kissed Shilpa, spoofing a scene from his movie Shall We Dance.

Three complaints, two in Rajasthan and one in Ghaziabad, were filed against him, charging him with obscenity in public.

The actor, who is likely to visit India in March in connection with the activities of the foundation, has argued in the petition that while complaints were filed and summons issued, no case of obscenity had been made out.

Gere has claimed, like Shilpa had done earlier, that the media played up the incident and that he had no hand in its telecast.

The Rajasthan courts did not follow due procedure established by law in issuing these warrants against him, the 59-year-old said.

“These non-bailable warrants, the applicant (Gere) apprehends, may be executed when he arrives in India,” the petition said.

Gere said the complaints against him were a “complete abuse of the process of law”. He said he was being “harassed and victimised” by those seeking to “use such form of litigation as a means of fulfilling their own agendas of gaining public and media attention”.

“Such complaints were detrimental to the financial and emotional interests of the applicant (Gere) and were causing great damage to him,” the petition said.

Gere has also sought exemption from court appearances in these cases.