A day after their chief quit, as around a dozen Censor Board members followed suit, the Government on Saturday came out hard against the “UPA appointees” for “politicising” the issue.
Terming Censor Board chairperson leela Samson as “non-functional” with whom he, his deputy Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore or any bureaucrat never communicated, Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley said the NDA Government maintains “arm’s length” distance in all matters relating to film certification and the “charge that meetings of the Censor Board are not being held is a self-condemnation”.
Jaitley also hit out at the Congress saying it was the UPA Government which had politicised the Censor Board. He pointed out that in 2004 the Government had dismissed the then Censor Board headed by actor Anupam Kher merely on the ground that he was appointed by the earlier Government. “The UPA Government had politicised the Censor Board... We did not wish to do that. It is regrettable that the UPA appointees have decided to politicise routine issues,” he said, adding, “We have restored its dignity by appointing a former judge of high credibility as chairperson of the Appeal Tribunal.”
Congress countered with Jaitley’s predecessor Manish Tewari asking what stopped the Government from sacking the Board members over the last eight months if it felt that the appointments were politicised. He also accused Jaitley of making Government’s “problems with Censor Board into UPA versus NDA issue”.
Earlier, in their joint letter to the Ministry, the resigning members of the Censor Board had claimed that the advisory panel continues to be filled up with people of “questionable credentials” appointed directly by the Ministry, without taking the Board’s recommendations into account. Officers from other departments, who have no understanding or experience in cinema, are appointed as officials, they alleged. The members who quit include Arundhati Nag, Ira Bhaskar, lora Prabhu, Pankaj Sharma, Rajeev Masand, Sekharbabu Kancherla, Shaji Karun, Shubhra Gupta and TG Thyagarajan.
In an article Rebels Without a Cause posted on his Facebook page on the controversy over resignation of Censor Board chief and some of its members over clearance to Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s film Messenger of God, Jaitley recalled Samson’s remarks that no board meetings were held to infer her being “non-functional”.
“The charge that meetings of the Censor Board are not being held is a self-condemnation. The meetings are to be convened not by the Minister or the Secretary but by the chairperson. If the meetings are not being convened, it is for those responsible for non-functioning who must blame themselves,” he said.
On corruption, he said, “If there is any corruption, the UPA appointees have themselves to blame. I only wished that the fact of corruption had been communicated even once by the chairperson of the Censor Board to me. The non-functional chairperson never did so.”
“I have not met or spoken to any member of the Censor Board nor authorised anyone to do the same,” he said, adding the outgoing UPA appointees in the Board never raised the issue of corruption with him.
Putting forth the legal position on the controversy, Jaitley said it is the Censor Board alone which decides on issues within its jurisdiction but an aggrieved producer has the right to move the Appeal Tribunal and if the latter disagrees with the Board, “it is part of the due process of law and not an onslaught on the Board’s autonomy”.
“Can a subordinate judicial authority ever cry foul if its decision is upset by an appellate authorityIJ” he asked. He also said: “I have checked up from officials of the Ministry who informed that the funds for the Censor Board have been returned to the Ministry as unspent by the Board.”