Mumbai: A draft bill has been presented by the Central Government, which has the power to overturn the decisions of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), popularly known as the Censor Board. An online petition has now been started against this and filmmakers and artists from across the country have started raising their voices.
On June 18, the Central Government had issued a notification in view of the changes in the Cinematograph Act 1952 and sought more suggestions from the people regarding changes in this Act. In such a situation, filmmakers and artists from across the country including Bollywood are now raising their voice against this bill.
So far, more than 1000 filmmakers, artists, writers, students, academicians have signed their signatures in support of the e-petition started in protest against this bill, which makes the central government powerful by bypassing the decisions of the censor board. While doing so, questions have been raised on the intention of the government.
Filmmakers, artists, writers like Anurag Kashyap, Hansal Mehta, Dibakar Banerjee, Farhan Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Zoya Akhtar, Abhishek Chaubey, Vetri Maran, Rohini Hattangadi, Varun Grover are among those who have signed this online petition so far.
Prateek Vats, director of the popular film 'Eeb Allay Ooo!', which was released on Netflix last year, has played an important role in starting this petition. Talking to ABP News, Prateek said that so far more than 1000 people have signed against this bill and this number of signatures are increasing continuously. The director told, “With the intention of making changes in the Cinematograph Act, 1952, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has also sought suggestions from the people. In such a situation, people are opposing the new provisions by sending various suggestions to the government through this petition.”
In the petition, the new provisions of the Act have been described as dangerous for the film industry. According to it, “Such a provision would adversely affect the independence of the Censor Board and the Supreme Court and would confer supreme power on the central government over the performance of films in the country. This will jeopardize the freedom of expression and democratic protest.”
The petition issued against the bill introduced by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting with new provisions to amend the Cinematograph Act, 1952 states, “We demand that this provision giving power to the government to withdraw film certificates issued by Censor board should be withdrawn.”
Before the start of this petition, well-known filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj, through his tweets, had strongly objected to changes in the Cinematograph Act, 1952 and made a public appeal to the people associated with the film industry to strongly oppose this bill.
It has been further written in this petition that after the amendment of the Act, all the filmmakers will be helpless in the hands of the government, their freedom to make films will be in jeopardy.
Demand has also been made through this petition to reinstate the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) once again. Let us tell you that in the month of April this year, the central government abolished the existence of the FCAT set up to appeal against the decisions of the Censor Board. In such a situation, the only way left for the filmmakers is to appeal against the censor board in the court.
Watch this space for more updates.