Taking exception to alleged wrong depiction of the Armed forces in films and related medium, the Defence Ministry has written to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to advise production houses to obtain No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Defence Ministry.
This certificate has to be taken before the telecast of any film, documentary or web series on Army theme in public domain.
“This has been done to curtail the incidents which distort the image of Defence Forces and hurt the sentiments of Defence personnel and veterans,” sources said here on Friday. The letter dated July 27 was written following complaints to the Defence Ministry from veterans and citizens about portrayal of the Indian Army personnel and military uniform in an insulting manner in two recent web series, they said.
“In some of the web series like ‘Code M’ on Zee 5 and ‘XXX Uncensored (season-2)’ on ALT Balaji, the scenes related to the Army are far from reality and present a distorted image of the Armed Forces,” they said. Some concerned citizens and ex-servicemen associations have even lodged First Information Report (FIR) against ALT Balaji seeking legal action against the producer and the Over The Top (OTT) platform, they said.
The serial “Code M” is about a woman Army officer lawyer investigating an encounter in which two terrorists and a soldier are killed. The lawyer, who is about to get married, finds out that the truth is somewhat different.
The other serial “XXX Uncensored” allegedly showed some objectionable scenes about an Army officer’s wife and another man. Producer of the serial has reportedly deleted some such scenes after the protests.