The Madras High Court will pronounce orders on January 27 this year on Tuesday on appeals filed by the Central Bureau of Film Certification challenging a single judge's order directing it to forthwith grant 'UA' certification for actor-politician Vijay's Jana Nayagan movie.
Orders will be pronounced by the bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G Arul Murugan on Tuesday morning. The court had reserved orders on 20th January after hearing the CBFC and the movie's producer at length.
Will Jana Nayagan get U/A certificate?
The movie, which is slated to be the final movie of Actor Vijay before his official entry into politics, was caught in a legal web after the CBFC delayed its certification. The producers of the movie, KVN Productions, approached the court against the delay. The production house argued that, though it had been informed by the board that the movie would be given a 'UA' certificate upon certain incisions/ modifications, the certificate had not been issued even after making such changes.
The production house also challenged the decision of the CBFC chairperson to send the film to the revising committee after informing that it would be granted a 'UA' certificate.
CBFC's stance
However, the CBFC intimated the single judge that there was a decision to send the movie to the revising committee once a complaint from one of the members of the examining committee was received to the effect that his objections were not considered. It was submitted that the complaint disclosed that some of the scenes in the movie could hurt religious sentiments and even portrayed the armed forces wrongly.
The single judge, on January 9, ruled in favour of the production house and directed the CBFC to certify the movie forthwith. The court observed that the Chairperson's decision to send the movie for review, after informing the producers that the movie would be certified, was without jurisdiction. The court also criticised against entertaining complaints from the members of the examining committee, after they had already given their recommendations.
An urgent mention was made before the Chief Justice's bench soon after the single judge's order. The same day, the division bench stayed the single judge's order. The court also made scathing remarks against the producers for 'creating an urgency' and pushing pressure on the judicial system. On January 20, the court continued hearing the appeal.
January 20's proceeding
CBFC, through ASG ARL Sundaresan, made submissions broadly on two issues: (i) that the Board was not granted time to file a counter affidavit; and (ii) the communication dated January 6 regarding review of the film certification by the Revising Committee was not assailed by the producers.
The production house, however, through Senior Advocate Satish Parasaran and Senior Advocate Pradeep Rai, continued to argue that the examining committee had already taken a unanimous decision to grant the certificate to the film, and hence could not have gone back upon the same.
It was also argued that the Chairperson's order directing that the movie be sent for review was never communicated to the producers, and only an intimation regarding the same had been received. Parasaran has also pointed out that the complaint which was received by the Chairperson had sought deletion of scenes which were already deleted upon suggestions by the examining committee.
He said that now the CBFC wanted to reintroduce the deleted scenes to remove it all over again, an empty exercise.
Also Read: Jana Nayagan faces OTT trouble as Vijay film makers may be sued over delay: Report
