The Madras high court has reserved its order in the Jana Nayagan certification case and may likely pronounce it on January 9. The hearing in the plea, filed by producers KVN Productions against the non-issuance of a censor certificate for the film, continued today (January 7) with the court hearing detailed submissions from both sides. The producers have alleged that the Central Board of Film Certification was delaying the issuance of certificate to the film ahead of its Pongal release on January 9.
Appearing for the CBFC, additional solicitor general A.R.L. Sundaresan told the court that all materials, including a copy of the complaint received via email against the film, had been placed before the bench. He submitted that the review process was initiated based on this complaint and under the powers vested with the CBFC chairman.
Justice P.T. Asha questioned the grounds on which the film was sent for review. She said, “Now only one ground on which you want to review the movie is based on the complaint, which, on the face of it, is not maintainable because all objections raised in the complaint have already been dealt with.” She further observed that the objections raised by the examining committee had already been addressed, and the alterations submitted by the producers. The court chided the CBFC saying that it was a responsible body, and while the body says that the entire exercise of revision is based on complaint, the complaint only says that the objections had not been considered. Justice Asha also remarked that once the chairman decided to send the film for review, the producers should have been informed and not allowed to proceed with the changes without notice.
ASG Sundaresan argued that the CBFC chairman had the power to override the decision of the examining committee and order a review and that the petitioner could not then go to court and say that since you said, you will grant certificate, you cannot review again.
Satish Parasaran, advocate for KVN Productions, argued that a member of the examining committee could only make recommendations and could not become a complainant. The advocate added, “The member has now become the complainant. I don’t know how it happens. It is not part of the e-cinepraman also.” He further said that once a majority decision had been taken by the committee, the opinion of one member could not invalidate it. “Even if one of the members has objections, it is still 4:1. It’s a majority decision. How can that be a reason for sending it for review?”, he wondered.
After hearing the submissions from both the sides, the court reserved its order in the matter. Justice Asha indicated that the orders are most likely to be pronounced on the morning of January 9. Before reserving orders, Justice Asha told the CBFC, “I’ll just say that these kind of complaints are not healthy.”
It is to be seen whether the film gets cleared by the court on January 9 because on that will depend its release. The Hindi and Telugu dubbed versions will also release only once the original Tamil version is certified because the certification of the dubbed versions will follow the original version’s clearance.
Meanwhile, the film has been cleared by the UK censors.