Amol Palekar has challenged the Censor Board and filed a
Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court, asking them to justify the
pre-censorship of movies. The Supreme Court has in turn asked the I&B
ministry to respond to the queries. Also the court has asked the CBFC to
implement the recommendations sent by Shyam Benegal and his team a year back.
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If this creates an impact, then it will be a big success
for all filmmakers who have been fighting and facing the ills of censorship in
the recent past. Films like Udta Punjab and Jolly LLB 2 are some recent
examples.
Palekar, in his petition, has pointed out that the Censor
Board doesn't have any member with a legal background. Thus the CBFC continues
to violate filmmakers’ fundamental right to speech and expression. He has even
termed the pre-censorship of films as irrelevant in the internet era.
With so many complaints against the CBFC, the I&B
Ministry had appointed Shyam Benegal and a team of other senior film personnel
to come up with recommendations for revamping the Censor Board. Even after a
year of the committee submitting their report, there has been no attempt to
implement the recommendations.
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