Sunny Deol starring ‘Mohalla Assi’ gets an A certificate after two years

On Wednesday ‘Mohalla Assi’ was passed by the CBFC with an A certificate. The film got certified after two long years of a legal battle with the CBFC over its clearance. The film stars Sunny Deol and Sakshi Tanwar in lead roles. The Delhi High Court had ordered the CBFC on December 11 to issue the certificate within a week.


The director said, “It has been a long battle but we finally won. We intend to release the film before Holi. The court did not ask for a single cut and only suggested that we mute, delete or beep an abuse which Sunny is mouthing in a sequence at a ghat which we complied with.”


The film producers had filed a contempt of court on December 22 against the CBFC on the grounds that they had not submitted in time to grant the certificate, “CBFC said that they would have to take instructions from the government. On January 2, the board approached the double bench stating that they are withdrawing the case and going for a review petition, which means going back to the judge who had given the original verdict.”


The CBFC refused to certify the film stating the reason, “The form and content of the film were highly derogatory of humans, cult, culture, religion including but not limited to mythology. Thirteen months of appearing in court and 11 hearings later, justice has been served.” The makers then reached out to the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal, which ordered 10 cuts and modifications. The filmmakers refused to comply, saying that it would damage the theme of the film and challenged the order in the Delhi High Court through a writ petition later in the year.


The filmmaker further adds, “Through this film, I was fighting for the rights of a creative person which involves authors and film writers. So many writers tell me that they are constantly fretting over potentially controversial subjects. I decided that it would be a moral defeat for our film if I approached any non-constitutional authorities.”


The film is based on Kashi Nath Singh’s book ‘Kashi Ka Assi’ that disjoins the politically-charged events of 1990 and 1998, including the Ram Janmabhoomi issue and the implementation of the Mandal Commission. The filmmaker signed off by saying, “CBFC also did not realise that this was not the first audio-visual representation of the book. A popular play, titled Kashinama, was staged widely and even selected to represent Asia at the German theatre festival years ago.”