Benegal panel on Censor Board revamp meets Jaitley

The Shyam Benegal committee, formed to look into the revamp of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) , met Information and Broadcasting minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday in Delhi and discussed the possible changes in guidelines for clearing movies.

“The crux of the meeting with the minister today was how the committee would function and work on what the guidelines and policies should be like of the censor board while clearing a movie. There might be amendments and changes in the (existing) guidelines,” Benegal said.

The move to revamp the board comes in the wake of a number of controversies the board courted after Pahlaj Nihalani took charge last year as chairman, and within days of Union minister Arun Jaitley saying the “time has come” to have a re-look at the functioning of the censor board.

Read: An account of CBFC and Nihalani’s controversies

Benegal said that the committee also discussed the scope of the board. “The committee will submit its report in two months to the government,” he said.

The government had on January 1 constituted the panel to look into the revamp of the CBFC functioning which has been mired in controversies in the recent past. The panel includes filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, adman Piyush Pandey and film critic Bhawana Somaaya. National Film Development Council MD Nina Lath Gupta and joint secretary (Films) Sanjay Murthy are also part of the panel. Apart from Jaitley, information and broadcasting minister of state Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore was also present.