Lawyers file complaints against Gere and Shilpa

Three Indian lawyers have filed complaints in court against Hollywood actor Richard Gere and Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty for kissing in public, a news report said today.

Such cases are quite common against celebrities in India whose legal system is desperately overburdened and disorganised, causing lengthy delays.

They are sometimes filed strictly to get media publicity.

The complaints were filed yesterday, a day after angry crowds in several Indian cities burned effigies of Richard Gere after he took Celebrity Big Brother winner Shetty into his arms and kissed her several times on the cheeks during an Aids-awareness event in the Indian capital, New Delhi.

Yesterday, Magistrate Dinesh Chandra Gupta in the north-western Indian city of Jaipur ordered a private television news channel, NDTV, to send the original video recording of the incident by next week, the Press Trust of India news agency said.