Sandhya Palekar has explained that the decision behind her husband Amol’s sudden petition to challenge the pre-censorship of films, is a move to reclaim ‘evaporating freedoms’. Through this, Palekar hopes to put an end to the arbitrary, random decisions made by the CBFC.
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“It’s nothing new; it has been going on for a long time — the fact that the Censor Board decides to not release a film [for] the most arbitrary reasons, and for the past three years, it has become rampant. That’s why we decided to go to the Supreme Court,” she said.
Read: Amol Palekar Files Petition To Change CBFC’s Pre-Censorship Of Films
Sandhya cited recent films that were refused certification by the CBFC like Lipstick Under My Burkha and Sameer.
“They refused to certify a film, because the makers refused to cut the word ‘Man Ki Bat’ from their film? Is it a cuss word or a patented phrase that one cannot use? What’s the basis of the film not being released? Then there’s another film that wasn’t given a certificate because it was ‘lady oriented,’” she added.
The Supreme Court has asked the CBFC to respond to Palekar’s petition. Sandhya is pleasantly surprised by the SC decision. “The SC could have dismissed our plea and not even heard it. I’m glad the Supreme Court has welcomed our plea. I think the law on censorship was so elegantly written in 1970 that it took 47 years to challenge it and demand changes [in] it. It’s archaic and it’s high time that things changed,” she said.
Pic: Top News