The year 2005 had its share of controversies in Bollywood ranging from flirtations with the law to the ban of on-screen smoking.

Controversies returned to haunt Salman Khan , Bollywood’s favourite ‘bad boy’.

There were media reports on transcripts of alleged taped conversations of the actor with his ex-girl friend Aishwarya Rai where he allegedly threatened her to perform at gangster Abu Salem’s party and also boasted of his underworld links. However, Salman was given a clean chit in the row.

The tape controversy, coming on the eve of the release of his film Maine Pyar Kyon Kiya , however, did not affect the film’s box office fate or his popularity.

Salman went on to give another hit in No Entry .

Salem’s extradition to India also put the focus back on the Bollywood-underworld nexus.

In December, Salman was granted bail by the chief judicial magistrate of Jodhpur, after he appeared in the court in two cases of black buck poaching in 1998.

At the fag end of the year, Saif Ali Khan was in the news after the car which he was driving hit and injured a boy. Though arrested by the police following the accident, Saif was soon released on bail.

In October, India TV aired a video shot 14 to 18 years ago showing actor-turned MP Govinda with international gangster Dawood Ibrahim

Govinda said that in 1989 the Central Bureau of Investigation, CID and Mumbai Police had conducted an inquiry into a photograph, taken at a party in Dubai, which was published in a newspaper featuring about 20 Bollywood actors.

The police had cleared all actors at that time after inquiry, he added.

Govinda alleged the old case was raked up by highlighting his name to malign him.

In December, Govinda was booked on charges of assault and threatening a TV reporter at the actor’s suburban Juhu office, even as police said the actor has apologised for the incident.

The year also saw Shah Rukh Khan in the throes of controversy after his home production Paheli ’s nomination as the Indian entry for this year’s Oscars came in for a lot of criticism from film circles.

Controversy also plagued the Sunny Deol -starrer Jo Bole So Nihaal , which faced the ire of the Shiromanee Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee (SGPC) on the ground that it had hurt the sentiments of the Sikh community.

All theatres in Punjab removed the film and the issue had its repercussions in Mumbai as well after a bomb blast in two Delhi theatres screening the film.

Karisma Kapoor ’s high-profile marriage in September 2003 was ‘on the rocks’ this year with her husband, Delhi-based industrialist Sanjay Kapur, seeking legal recourse restraining her from taking their infant daughter to USA.

After days of court drama, the marital discord ended in an equally high profile patch up amid media hype even though the couple did not utter a word on the issue in public.

The ‘descendants’ of Mangal Pandey filed a petition in the Delhi High Court accusing the filmmakers of portraying the freedom fighter in poor light in the Aamir Khan starrer The Rising .

In September, Tamil actress Khushboo stirred a major controversy by saying in an interview that there was nothing wrong with premarital sex if the girls knew how to prevent pregnancy and how to avoid contracting AIDS.

Hell broke loss over the remarks, which upset the Tamils. A few political parties like the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and Dalit Panthers threatened to launch a statewide agitation unless the actress apologised for her remarks, which degraded, according to them, Tamil culture.

Stung by the criticism, Khushboo tendered an unconditional apology.

In December, a follower of godman Aniruddha Bapu filed a defamation suit against Nana Patekar in a Mumbai court for his reported outburst in the media against godmen in the state.

The I&B Ministry and the Union Health Ministry locked horns over the latter’s decision to ban smoking on screen, a move which was resisted by the film fraternity.

Differences between Ministries of Health and Information & Broadcasting forced the Centre to defer its decision to implement the onscreen smoking ban from January 1 to March 1, 2006.