Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Monday directed the revising committee of the Central Board for Film Certification (CBFC), the Censor Board, to take a decision on the clearance certificate for Ram Gopal Varma’s film ‘Vyooham’ by February 9.
On January 22, a single judge set aside the clearance certificate and remitted the issue to the Censor Board to take a fresh call within three weeks from the last week of January. On Monday, the division bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Jukanti Anil Kumar modified the order, setting the February 9 deadline.
The bench issued the order on appeals filed by the movie’s producer and director, who contended that the story of ‘Vyooham’ was based on the biography of AP Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and rooted in true events.
The expert committee of the Censor Board, which had earlier rejected a clearance certificate, had pointed out that many of the persons portrayed in the film, including Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Pawan Kalyan, Chiranjeevi, Konijeti Rosaiah, apart from Chandrababu Naidu, were shown conspiring to implicate Jagan Mohan Reddy in CBI and ED cases to prevent him from coming to power. The expert committee noted that the film was derogatory towards these persons and that it also mentioned the sub judice matter of the skill development scam, in which Naidu was arrested.
Upon intervention by the High Court, the revision committee issued the clearance certificate, which the single judge quashed on January 22, following which the division bench heard the appeal on Monday.
The division bench observed that the revising committee had not assigned a reason for granting the ‘U’ certificate to the movie with excisions and it was, therefore, in contravention of Rule 24(9) of the Certification Rules.
The bench said that freedom of expression was a fundamental right in a democratic society governed by the rule of law. “The producer has the fundamental right under Article 19 of the Constitution which permitted him to allude to true incidents with his perspective. The producer had invested money for producing the film and was also required to book theatres in advance to ensure its release,” the court observed.
The bench directed the CBFC chairman to reconstitute the revising committee, if it was not done so following the single judge’s orders, "which shall view the movie and communicate its decision to the filmmakers before February 9."
