Shyam Benegal, director of "Bose - The Forgotten Hero", has said he would reply in court to the charges of distortion of facts in the film on freedom fighter Subhash Chandra Bose.

"I have said what I have to say. We have done this film after years of research. Now we would only reply in court," Benegal said at the world premiere of the film here Wednesday.

Hours before the premiere, a writ petition was filed in Calcutta High Court against the film's producers, seeking to remove scenes showing Bose, popularly called Netaji, as a married person.

The petition also objected to the use of the word "forgotten" in the film's title.

"What is wrong in the use of the world 'Forgotten'?" Benegal asked.

"Not in Bengal, but in the rest of India he (Netaji) is indeed a forgotten hero. People should know who he was and what he really achieved," the director had said earlier.

Benegal wondered why there was controversy over the use of some tunes in the film. "The charge is so trivial that it is not even funny. What do you mean by distortion of song? You know the number of remixes going on? All that is a part of public domain now," he said.

"We are holding the film's world premiere here rightly because it is a film on Netaji," Benegal said as he introduced the cast and crew of the film.

"Bose - The Forgotten Hero" captures Netaji's journey from 1941 to 1945 in the backdrop of the Second World War and the exploits of the Indian National Army founded by him to fight against British rulers.

Five researchers and deponents to the Mukherjee commission, probing the mystery surrounding Netaji's whereabouts after the August 1945 Taihoku aircrash, had Wednesday moved court.

"We have filed the PIL (public interest litigation) to protest against the showing of Netaji as married to Austrian lady Emily Schenkl and also for calling him a forgotten hero," Rudrajyoti Bhattacharjee, a researcher on the freedom fighter, said.

"Despite our requests, the romantic scenes showing a married Netaji were not removed," Bhattacharjee told IANS.

The group had written to censor board chief Sharmila Tagore and secretaries of the home and information and broadcasting ministries last month against the film.

"We have proof that Netaji's marriage to Emily Schenkl is concocted. While Netaji's family members claim he got married to Emily in 1937, according to Netaji's passport and other documents he had applied for a visa to visit China Nov 23, 1939 mentioning his marital status as 'single'," Mukherjee commission deponent and researcher Jayanta Chowdhury said.