In an interesting turn of events, as many as 38 film bodies and production houses have filed a suit against a news channel and four journalists on Monday for making and publishing irresponsible, derogatory remarks against the film industry.

The lawsuit was filed against Republic TV and Arnab Goswami and Pradeep Bhandari of the channel; and Times Now and its prominent anchors Rahul Shivshankar and Navika Kumar.

The plaintiffs include four film industry associations and 34 producers, including The Producers Guild of India and production houses of Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Karan Johar, Akshay Kumar, Aditya Chopra, Farhan Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar.

This comes in the wake of these channels using highly derogatory words and expressions for Bollywood such as "dirt", "filth", "scum", "druggies" and expressions such as "it is Bollywood where the dirt needs to be cleaned", "This is the dirtiest industry in the country", and "cocaine and LSD drenched Bollywood" etc.

The suit has been filed by DSK Legal on behalf of the Plaintiffs.

Republic TV is also embroiled in a fake TRPs controversy. Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh had claimed that Republic TV and two other Marathi channels had manipulated TRPs.