The Bombay high court on Thursday pulled up the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) for its delay in granting certification to BJP MP Kangana Ranaut’s film, Emergency. It has now directed the Revising Committee of the CBFC to take a decision on whether to release the certificate or otherwise by September 25, 2024 and communicate their decision to the producers as well as to the court.
On being told that the CBFC chairman had forwarded the board’s representations to a revising committee, the bench comprising justice BP Colabawalla and justice Firdosh Pooniwala told Dr. Abhinav Chandrachud, who represented the CBFC, “This is just passing the buck. Enough time had been given. We should have been told about the review committee. The film was submitted for certification on 1st of August, we are in the middle of September now.”
Noting that producers incur substantial financial burden, the court observed that the CBFC should have finished the entire process of review and release of certificate before September 18. “We were expecting a decision (by the CBFC). This is all a time stretching exercise. There are elections in Haryana in 1st week of October,” said senior advocate Venkatesh Dhond, who represented the producers of the movie.
He added that CBFC was deliberately delaying the release of the certificate to garner support in the upcoming Haryana polls. “There were objections to the trailer of the movie. The Board has seen the entire movie and is still delaying the release,” Dhond said, adding that the film was being looked at as an anti-Sikh movie that might offend a sizeable population living in Haryana.
The judges, however, refused to enter the political controversy. “What is the political angle here? Basically, is a political party ruling against its own MP? We are not going into the political angle of the movie,” he said, disagreeing with the senior advocate.
CBFC denied claims of political reasons behind the delay in releasing a censor certificate for the film. “We (CBFC) are concerned with Section 5A of the Act (Cinematography Act, 1952) and Article 19 (2) of the Constitution,” said Dr Abhinav Chandrachud, who represented the Board, adding that the CBFC felt there were issues relating to public policy that needs to be examined. “There are some scenes in the movie wherein a person, a polarizing figure of a religious persuasion, is cutting a deal with political parties. We must see if this is factually correct,” Chandrachud said.
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To this, the court said, “This is a movie and not a documentary. Do you think that the public is so naive that they will believe everything that they see in a movie. What about creative freedom? It is not for the CBFC to decide whether this affects public order. We want the Board to certify the movie on Monday.”
Accommodating Dr. Chandrachud’s plea for a reasonable timeframe, the bench referred to its last order (regarding certification) on 4 September and said, “The law allows 20 days for certification. So let them release the certificate on the 25th of September.”
