Mumbai, June 10: The Bombay High Court Friday pulled up the censor board for insisting on “censoring” films instead of “certifying” them and asked the board why it was not banning “Udta Punjab” if the movie indeed glorified drugs.
A divison bench comprising Justice SC Dharmadhikari and Justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi asked the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to leave it to the viewers to decide whether the film was defaming a state as the modern cinema 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”. 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 June 13.
Earlier, CBFC told the court some of the scenes recommended for deletion in the film were “very vulgar” and the lyrics used in the songs were “offensive”.
CBFC lawyer Advait Sethna said one dialogue, “zameen banjar toh aulad kanjar”, was abusive and the word “kanjar” was used in an objectionable manner.
The court said films do not run on such content and there must be a storyline and modern audiences were mature enough.
Sethna further argued that the word “kanjar” 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’. IANS