Vishal, hero of Tamil film Mark Antony, stirred a hornet’s nest yesterday (28th September) when he released a video accusing employees of the Bombay office of the Central Board of Film Certification of asking for a bribe of Rs. 6.50 lakh for arranging a quick screening of the Hindi dubbed version of the film and granting it a ‘UA’ certificate. He also said, he paid the bribe money. The video was released on his Twitter account.
That’s not all. The actor went on to share the bank transaction receipts as proof of the payments made by his film’s team to the CBFC officials. He said, the team first paid Rs. 3 lakh for the screening, and later, the balance Rs. 3.50 lakh for the certificate.
The video goes on to show him appealing to Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to look into the serious allegations of corruption. He also named the mediator between the film’s team and the CBFC officials.
Vishal tweeted, “#Corruption being shown on silver screen is fine. But not in real life. Can’t digest. Especially in govt. offices. And even worse happening in #CBFC Mumbai office. Had to pay 6.5 lacs for my film #MarkAntonyHindi version. 2 transactions. 3 lakhs for screening and 3.5 lakhs for certificate. Never faced this situation ever in my career. Had no option but to pay the concerned mediator #Menaga coz too much at stake since movie released today.”
The actor went on to give details of the bank accounts to which the money was transferred.
The ministry of Information and Broadcasting took the matter very seriously and tweeted, “The issue of corruption in CBFC brought forth by actor #VishalKOfficial is extremely unfortunate. The government has zero tolerance for corruption and strictest action will be taken against anyone found involved. A senior officer from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has been deputed to Mumbai to conduct an inquiry today itself. We request everyone to cooperate with Ministry, by providing information about any other instance of harassment by CBFC at jsfilms.inb@nic.in
Meanwhile, there are whispers about bribes being given in several other cases for certification of films. The producer of Kay Kay Menon starrer Love-All has openly said that he too paid a bribe for getting his film certified.
The CBFC issued a clarificatory release today (29th) that the system of online applications for film certification was introduced only to weed out middlemen who could demand bribes. CBFC chairman Prasoon Joshi has demanded a CBI inquiry into the matter.