Indian court shelves warrant against Gere for kissing Shetty

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India’s Supreme Court on Friday shelved an arrest warrant issued against Hollywood heart-throb Richard Gere for showering kisses on Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty.

The move cleared the way for Hollywood’s best-known Buddhist to meet next week with the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader who has lived in northern India since fleeing Tibet.

Gere, who is also an AIDS activist, tightly clasped Shetty -- winner of Britain’s Celebrity Big Brother reality show -- and planted kisses on her cheek in front of gaping Indian truck drivers at an awareness event in Rajasthan.

The incident last April was aired repeatedly on television and triggered a firestorm in India, where chaste public behaviour is a stern tradition, despite Bollywood’s sexually suggestive song-and-dance routines.

Radical Hindus burned effigies of Gere in Mumbai and organised street rallies in New Delhi. An Indian judge issued an arrest warrant for Gere and a summons for Shetty following a complaint accusing the pair of obscenity. The summons against Shetty was suspended last May.

Chief justice K.G. Balakrishnan “stayed” the complaint filed in a Rajasthan court against Gere, saying it was “publicity hunting”.

“The court has no business to issue the arrest warrant,” he said. “The case brings a bad name to the country.”

Shetty had blamed India’s “lunatic fringe” for the uproar. Gere apologised last year for his exuberant display, apparently an attempt to demonstrate to the watching truck drivers that kissing was a safe activity that did not spread AIDS.

Gere left the country soon after the event and has been unable to visit India since because of the arrest warrant. Friday’s court ruling will allow him to travel here without fear of arrest.