The Supreme Court on Tuesday dubbed a challenge to film Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “non-issue” and refused to stop its release.

A Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, did not consider it necessary to entertain the petition, which alleges the film to be a “blatant propaganda” dressed up as a work of art in violation of the Model Code of Conduct for the Lok Sabha election.

The court said the film had not yet been certified and it would be “premature” to intervene now.

When told that the movie producer had scheduled its release on April 11, the day of the first phase of the Lok Sabha election, the court said any circumstances that arose from its release on that day and after would lie within the jurisdiction of the Election Commission of India (ECI).

Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, for petioner and Congress activist Aman Panwar, said the ECI had been “sitting on” a complaint filed by the Congress for the past two weeks.

Mr. Singhvi produced a two-minute official video footage of the film to show parts of the movie that ”exactly correspond with the anthem and election campaigneering of the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.” He said the words used in the film could be found in the campaign slogans of 2014. ”Film’s lead actor Vivek Oberoi is a star campaigner for the BJP,” he pointed out. The film would play out for 40 days, and throughout the duration of the coming general election.

“This is about a level playing field and violation of electoral law,” said Mr. Singhvi. He argued that the film should not be screened on the day of polling or 48 hours before the election.

The court, however, said a two-minute video was not enough to make an “assessment” of the nature of the film. The question whether it worked to tilt the balance in favour of the BJP had to be addressed by the ECI. The court cannot get into it on the basis of a PIL petition filed about a film that is yet to be certified.

Directive to petitioner on Monday

On Monday, the court asked Mr. Panwar to file an application highlighting parts found objectionable by him and why he found it a violation of the Model Code of Conduct.

“We have not seen the film. We do not know the contents of the film. How can we order anything without knowing what we are ordering about?” Chief Justice Gogoi asked.

Mr. Singhvi had argued that the film was a direct attack on the basic structure of the Constitution which guarantees free and fair elections.

In fact, the petition argued, chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification Prasoon Joshi was listed and credited as one of the artists who worked on the film. It said all the four producers were card-carrying official BJP members. Two of them had held official posts in the party machinery. The fourth was a participant of ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ and recently signed, through his company, an MoU with the BJP government in the State for a reported sum of around ₹177 crore.

The upper echelons of the BJP have direct association with the movie, with the Maharashtra Chief Minister releasing the first poster and BJP president Amit Shah was scheduled to release other similar promotional material it said.