The Madras High Court has directed the National Film Development Corporation to release within four weeks the Tamil version of a film on B.R. Ambedkar directed by Jabbar Patel.

Disposing of a public interest litigation petition filed by advocate Sathyachandran, a Division Bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice K.K. Sasidharan, also directed the Tamil Nadu government to decide within two weeks the issue pertaining to grant of tax exemption sought by the distributor.

According to the petitioner, the film Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, originally shot in English, was dubbed in Hindi, Marathi and other regional languages. It won three national film awards, including the best feature film in English. Mammootty won the best actor award and Nitin Chandrakant Desai, the award for best art direction.

The State government had earlier announced Rs.10 lakh for dubbing the film into Tamil. However, since no action was taken, the petitioner approached the court.

On behalf of the NFDC, it was submitted that the subtitled version had already been given to the distributor. The Public Prosecutor said that the State government was interested in early release of the film.