Rahul Rawail calls Amol Palekar ‘Manipulative’, resigns from ‘Oscar’ jury

Soon after the decision of sending Marathi-English film “Court” for the Oscars was declared, Rahul Rawail announced his resignation on Twitter.

Bollywood director Rahul Rawail, a part of the 17-member jury that collectively chose “Court” as India’s official entry for the Oscars, on Wednesday resigned from the panel over differences with jury chairperson Amol Palekar. He tweeted, “Jst wanna clarify tht am proud of Court n fully support its selection I resigned from th Oscar jury bcoz of Mr Palekars obnoxious behaviour”.

While addressing a press conference in Mumbai on Thursday (September 24), Rahul Rawail said: “Amol’s wife was present at the screening”. Finally when I checked it, I got to know that film A was at the top position while B was the last and C was the second highest with Court in the third place.

“I’ve been hearing that people feel that I was not happy with Court being selected”. One is not supposed to bring anyone with them. “But I resigned before the last vote”. It is not that he manipulated for Court. Rahul also said that he demanded a re-poll and pushed them for re-counting.

During the jury voting, there was constantly a tie between the last two films “Court” and another one, where Palekar even suggested tossing the coin to resolve the impasse. When that didn’t resolve and it was Palekar’s turn to put in his vote, he shocked everyone with a u-turn, he alleged.

Court was also named the Best Picture at the National film awards 2015, besides winning 17 worldwide honours after being premiered at the Venice global Film Festival in 2014. Court in the initial round had only 4 votes. “Mr Palekar wants to give an impression that he is the hero of Court, by portraying that he pushed it up”, said Mr Rawail. “His statement is ridiculous”, Sen told PTI when asked whether Rawail was angry at Palekar for pushing the Marathi film. She had even termed Court as a disgusting movie. Rawail claims that she didn’t have the right to do so and as chairman, Amol should’ve stopped this.