NEW DELHI — A planned Oct. 31 release of The Taj Story, starring actor Paresh Rawal, has triggered fierce backlash after critics accused the film of pushing a debunked claim that the Taj Mahal was built over a Hindu temple. The Delhi High Court declined to fast-track pleas seeking an urgent halt, even as historians and the Archaeological Survey of India again rejected the “Tejo Mahalaya” narrative, Oct. 30, 2025.
Why The Taj Story has become a flashpoint
The spark was a set of visuals that landed like a match near dry grass: posters and a trailer show Rawal lifting the Taj Mahal’s dome to reveal a figure of Lord Shiva. Critics argue the imagery sells pseudo-history to a mass audience and risks fueling a familiar, polarizing claim about a monument that is both a national symbol and a global tourist draw.
The producers deny that reading. They said The Taj Story does not “deal with any religious matters” and does not claim “a Shiv temple resides within the Taj Mahal,” urging audiences to watch first, according to Hindustan Times’ account of the statement and the petition.
Delhi High Court refuses urgent ban bid against The Taj Story
A public interest litigation asked the court to stay The Taj Story and review its clearance by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), arguing the film presents a contested narrative as fact and could inflame communal tensions. When the case was mentioned for urgent listing, the bench led by Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya declined and said it would be “auto-listed” in the normal course, as Moneycontrol reported.
In the hearing that followed, judges questioned whether they were being asked to become a “super censor board” and gave petitioners liberty to approach the central government under the Cinematograph Act, according to NDTV’s report from the courtroom. Rawal said the intent was not to inflame religious passions: “We never intended to create any Hindu-Muslim controversy.”
Meanwhile, Ayodhya-based BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Singh filed a separate complaint seeking action against The Taj Story, arguing the film draws from a petition he previously filed about opening “22 locked rooms” inside the Taj Mahal and uses his judicial matter without consent, Mint reported.
Old claim, new packaging: historians and ASI push back
Long before The Taj Story, the “Tejo Mahalaya” claim had been tested and rejected in courtrooms. In 2017, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) told an Agra court the Taj Mahal is a tomb — not a temple — and denied evidence of a Shiva linga or the temple theory, The Times of India reported.
In May 2022, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court dismissed a plea seeking to open sealed rooms in the monument to “verify” temple claims, The Indian Express reported. And in earlier coverage of similar suits, The Guardian reported writer P.N. Oak’s theory reached India’s Supreme Court in 2000 and was dismissed.
For now, The Taj Story is still headed toward release — but the backlash has already turned the film into a test of how India handles contested history when it moves from the margins to the multiplex.
