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Mumbai, September 19 (HS). The Bombay High Court on Thursday ordered the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to take a decision on the release of Kangana Ranaut's film 'Emergency' by September 25. The High Court emphasized that creative freedom cannot be limited. A division bench of Justices BP Colabawala and Firdaus Pooniwala criticized the censor board for delaying the certification of the film Emergency.
A division bench of the Bombay High Court on Thursday said that creative freedom and freedom of expression cannot be curbed. The censor board cannot refuse to certify a film merely on the grounds that it may cause law and order problems. The division bench asked whether the CBFC thinks that the people of this country are so naive that they cannot believe everything shown in a film.
Zee Entertainment, co-producer of Kangana Ranaut's film “Emergency”, told the Bombay High Court on Thursday that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) is delaying censor clearance for the film as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suspects that the movie may impact the party's prospects in the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana. Senior advocate Venkatesh Dhond, appearing for Zee, submitted that the film is seen as an anti-Sikh film and Haryana has a significant Sikh population. The BJP-led central government does not want a film which hurts the sentiments of Sikhs to be released before the elections.
A division bench of Justices BP Colabawala and Firdaus Pooniwala did not accept this argument, although the bench strongly objected to the delay of the CBFC in deciding on the release of the controversial film. The court said that the CBFC is not required to examine or worry about the law and order implications while certifying the film and the film should not be viewed in the same manner as a documentary, otherwise it curbs creative freedom.
Senior advocate Abhinav Chandrachud, appearing for the CBFC, told the court that the censor board was reviewing the representations and objections received against the film. “There are certain scenes in the film in which a person, a polarising person of a particular religious ideology, is making a deal with political parties. We have to see whether it is factually correct or not,” Chandrachud said.
During the last hearing, the court had stayed the release of the film on September 6 by refusing to grant any relief to Zee. The court had mentioned in the last hearing that the Madhya Pradesh High Court had directed the CBFC to address the representations of members of the Sikh community in a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a stay on the release of the film. The Bombay High Court had directed the CBFC to consider all the directions by September 18. The court ultimately directed the CBFC's review committee to decide on the film's release by September 25.