Pahlaj Nihalani calls Kushan Nandy a ‘liar’; says the CBFC never misbehaved with producer Kiran Shroff

The CBFC has been dragged into a controversy, yet again. This time, however, for a completely different reason.The makers of ‘Babumoshai Bandookbaaz’ have accused certain members of the Censor Board of ‘humiliating’ the movie’s producer Kiran Shroff.

“After the screening, one of the board members commented on my producer’s clothes,” said the film’s director Kushan Nandy. He further accused CBFC chief Pahlaj Nihalani of threatening him with more cuts. “He told me I had two options. I could either go to the Revising Committee where I’d be given even more cuts or I could take my film to the Tribunal. I chose the latter option. He spoke to me in an arrogant tone. I tried to reason with him about the cuts. One of the dialogues that his Examining Committee ordered out drew an inference to an erection. But I pointed out to Mr Nihalani that he had shot a whole song called ‘Khada Hai’ 20 years ago in celebration of an erection. But he wouldn’t hear any of it,” said the filmmaker.

However, Nihalani slammed the filmmaker and cross-accused him of lying about the whole incident. “Kushan is lying. No untoward incident happened with his producer. If that was the case, why didn’t he mention the incident when he met me? Yes, he met me after his film was rejected by our Examining Committee for what he calls a ‘private meeting’,” said Nihalani. “He tried to intimidate me and get the cuts in his film restored by using his political connections,” added the CBFC chief.

“Since I was brought in as the chairperson, these handful of team members have been working against the CBFC’s interests. They want to project themselves as the liberal forces, never mind if they end up flouting CBFC guidelines and rules,” said Nihalani before signing off.

(Also read: Aamir Khan: I don’t know how relevant is censorship today)