SHE may be the most high-profile woman in India and her remarkable rise from unassuming housewife to de facto leader of a billion adoring people may bear all the hallmarks of an epic screenplay, but Sonia Gandhi would rather her life is not turned into a film.

The Italian-born leader of the ruling Congress Party has served legal notice on the makers of Sonia, an English- language biopic that had Monica Bellucci lined up in the title role.

The notice, from the office of Abhishek Singhvi, the Congress Party’s spokesman, is the equivalent of an injunction and states that Sonia’s makers have not sought permission from Mrs Gandhi. The letter could prevent their filming in India and the picture from being shown there.

The proposed film, based on an unauthorised biography of Mrs Gandhi, was due to start production in October but has now been shelved.

Murli Manohar, the film’s producer, said that he had not received the notice yet but “understood something was coming”. He told The Times: “We wanted to make this movie because it is a great story, but there is no point fighting. We will try to address their concerns, and we are confident we can, but for the moment things are on hold.”

Sonia was launched last year by Patricia Hewitt, then the Trade and Industry Secretary, as part of a “Bollywood Initiative”, which allows British investment in the Indian film industry.

Mr Singhvi said: “We have served a legal notice. The movie is supposedly based on an unauthorised biography, but the director should take the permission of Mrs Gandhi. He has spoken about discussing the movie with Congressmen and people close to her. Then why doesn’t he speak to her directly? All this gives the impression that the Congress and Sonia Gandhi have given him the go ahead. We want to correct that.”

Mrs Gandhi, the widow of Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister, is rarely seen in public wearing anything other than her trademark sari and is seldom heard speaking Italian. Few Indians realise that she was born into a working class family in Turin and once led a liberal Western life.

Sonia’s makers had hoped to bring to light that story as well as chronicle the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

The involvement of Bellucci, who played Mary Magdalene in The Passion of the Christ, had already drawn criticism. Last month, Rasheed Kidwai, author of the book on which Sonia is based, wrote to the director, Jagmohan Mundhra, expressing his concern at Mrs Gandhi’s portrayal in the film.

Mundhra said yesterday that he had not sought Mrs Gandhi’s co-operation because he believed that it might have placed her in an embarrassing position. “If she had cooperated, her opponents would have said she was having a propaganda movie made about herself. She rules one billion Indian people and she is not even an Indian by birth. I feel this is a great story to be told and, therefore, I want to make a film on her life,” he said.

Despite priding itself on a constitution that guarantees freedom of expression, India has a history of censorship. It was the first country to ban Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and the Central Board of Film Certification regularly uses the fear of civil unrest between its Hindu and Muslim communities to demand cuts from directors or to keep certain films out of cinemas. Only yesterday, a ban was lifted on 17 websites that ministers claimed were fanning religious hatred after the bomb blasts in Bombay on July 11.

Amardeep Singh, assistant professor of English at Lehigh University, in Pennsylvania, was not surprised by Mrs Gandhi’s attempts to stop the film. “There is a knee-jerk censoriousness in Indian politics and it is a sad reaction to try to suppress the film before it has even been produced,” he said. “It is meant to be a respectful biopic, but I think they’re just nervous because the director has a reputation for the unsavoury.”

Mundhra is best known for Hollywood erotic thrillers such as Tropical Heat and Night Eyes, although he rails against the label of soft pornographer, pointing to films such as Kamla and Bawandar, which have won critical acclaim.