Stop censoring instead of certifying films, court tells CBFC

The Bombay High Court yesterday pulled up the censor board for insisting on “censoring” films instead of “certifying” them and asked why it was not banning Udta Punjab if the movie indeed glorified drugs. The final verdict on the film’s release will be out on June 13.A division bench comprising Justice S C Dharmadhikari and Justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi asked the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to leave it to viewers to decide whether the film was defaming a state as the modern audiences were a mature lot.The judges noted that all this was giving unnecessary publicity to the film and said people must be allowed to see what they want on television or cinema as “everybody has a choice”. The CBFC must stick to certifying instead of censoring films, they said.After completing the second day’s hearing on a plea filed by Udta Punjab co-producers challenging the cuts recommended by CBFC, the judges said they would pronounce their verdict on June 13.Earlier, the CBFC lawyer Advait Sethna told the court that some of the scenes recommended for deletion in the film were “very vulgar” and the lyrics used in the songs were “offensive”. The movie highlights the drug menace in Punjab.To this, the court pointed out that films do not run on such content and there must be a storyline and the modern audiences were mature enough.Sethna further argued that the film showed the state in a poor light as Punjab was a highly productive state. He added that a dog in the film was named ‘Jackie Chan’.On Thursday, the court had noted that the film wants to save people from drugs and was not “made with a view to malign the state or its people”.Co-produced by Anurag Kashyap and directed by Abhishek Chaubey, Udta Punjab stars Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Diljit Dosanjh.Kashyap accused CBFC chairman Pahlaj Nihalani of bullying and deliberately not certifying the film slated for release on June 17.While the CBFC at one point demanded 89 cuts in the film, its revising committee brought down the number to 13.The row over Udta Punjab took a new turn after Nihalani suggested that Kashyap may have taken money from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to produce the movie ahead of the Punjab elections due next year.Meanwhile Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra yesterday supported Anurag Kashyap’s Udta Punjab and said creativity should not be curbed in democracy.Protest over drugs in Punjab plannedCongress Vice President Rahul Gandhi will lead a protest sit-in by the party on June 13 at Jalandhar against the scourge of drugs and deteriorating law and order in Punjab, a senior party leader said. The dharna at Jalandhar, 150km from Chandigarh, comes amid a raging row over the drugs abuse depicted in the upcoming Bollywood movie ‘Udta Punjab’. Rahul was earlier criticised by the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal leadership for saying that over 70% of Punjab residents were consuming drugs. “Rahul has been consistently raising the issue of (consumption of) drugs in Punjab. When he raised the issue in Punjab in 2012, the Akalis accused him of maligning the Punjabi youth. The situation has now gone from bad to worse as the Akalis never bothered to tackle the problem,” Congress state leader Rana Gurjeet Singh said. “The eradication of drugs from Punjab is top priority for the Congress and the protest event will be held in that context only,” the Congress leader said.