Central Board of Film Certification

Central Board of Film Certification (India)

Formation	1951
Type	Government Organisation
Purpose	Film Certification
Headquarters	Mumbai
Region served	India
CEO	Shravan Kumar IRS
Parent organisation	Ministry of Information and Broadcasting
Budget	₹69 million (US$1.0 million) (2011)
Website	cbfcindia.gov.in

The Central Board of Film Certification (often referred to as the Censor Board) is a statutory censorship and classification body under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. It is tasked with "regulating the public exhibition of films under the provisions of the Cinematograph Act 1952". It assigns certifications to films, television shows, television ads, and publications for exhibition, sale or hire in India. Films can be publicly exhibited in India only after they are certified by the Board.

History

Though the first film in India (Raja Harishchandra) was produced in 1913 by Dadasaheb Phalke, the Indian Cinematograph Act was passed and came into effect only in 1920. Censor Boards (as they were called then) were placed under police chiefs in cities of Madras (now Chennai), Bombay (now Mumbai), Calcutta (now Kolkata), Lahore (now in Pakistan) and Rangoon (now Yangon in Burma). Regional censors were independent. After Independence autonomy of regional censors was abolished and they were brought under the Bombay Board of Film Censors. With implementation of Cinematograph Act, 1952, the board was unified and reconstituted, as the Central Board of Film Censors. Cinematograph (Certification) Rules were revised in 1983 and since then the Central Board of Film Censors became known as the Central Board of Film Certification.

Certificates

• U (Unrestricted Public Exhibition)

Films with the U certification are fit for public exhibition, and are often family friendly. These films can contain universal themes like education, family, drama, romance, sci - fi, and action etc. Now, these films can also contain some mild violence, but it should not be prolonged.

• U/A (Unrestricted Public Exhibition - But With Parental Guidance)

Films with the UA certification can contain universal to adult themes, that are not strong in nature and can be watched by a child under parental guidance. These films can contain some strong violence, brief kissing scenes, frightening scenes and mild language etc.

• A (Adults Only)

Films with the A certification are available for public exhibition, but with restriction to adults. These films can contain heavily strong violence, kissing scenes, implied sex, some coarse language and even some controversial and adult themes considered unsuitable for young viewers. Such films are often recertified for TV and video viewing, which doesn't happen in case of U and UA certified movies.

• S (Science)

Films with S certification should not be viewed by the public. Only people associated with science (Doctors, Scientists etc.) have permission to watch those films

• V/U (Universal Video)

Films with V/U certification are also fit for unrestricted public exhibition. In fact, the U and V/U ratings are the same, only difference is that they are released on different platforms, i.e., U certified films can be shown in theatres and video, but V/U certified films are shown mostly on video platforms excluding theatres. However, V/U certified films can now be screened in theatres as well.

• V/UA (Parental Guidance Video)

Films with V/UA certification are the same as UA,i,e, they are for video and theatrical release (now) with parental guidance.

Composition and leadership

The Board consist of 25 other non-official members and a Chairperson (all of whom are appointed by Central Government). Pahlaj Nihalani presently presides the Board after Leela Samson who resigned after the CBFC's rejection of a certifate for the film MSG: Messenger of God was overturned by an appellate tribunal. Earlier, Leela Samson had succeeded Sharmila Tagore, who was the longest continuous running Chairperson in the history. Nihalani is now the 27th Chairperson after the Board's establishment.

The Board functions with its headquarters at Mumbai. It has nine Regional offices each at:

• Bengaluru
• Chennai
• Cuttack
• Guwahati
• Hyderabad
• Kolkata
• Mumbai
• New Delhi
• Thiruvananthapuram

The Regional Offices are assisted in the examination of films by Advisory Panels. The members of the panels are nominated by Central Government by drawing people from different walks of life for a period of two years.

Chairpersons of the CBFC

No.	Name	From	To
1	C S Aggarwal	15 January 1951	14 June 1954
2	B D Mirchandani	15 June 1954	9 June 1955
3	M D Bhatt	10 June 1955	21 November 1959
4	D L Kothari	22 November 1959	24 March 1960
5	B D Mirchandani	25 March 1960	1 November 1960
6	D L Kothari	2 November 1960	22 April 1965
7	B P Bhatt	23 April 1965	22 April 1968
8	R P Nayak	31 April 1968	15 November 1969
9	M V Desai	12 December 1969	19 October 1970
10	R Srinivasan	20 October 1970	15 November 1971
11	Virendra Vyas	11 February 1972	30 June 1976
12	K L Khandpur	1 July 1976	31 January 1981
13	Hrishikesh Mukherjee	1 February 1981	10 August 1982
14	Aparna Mohile	11 August 1982	14 March 1983
15	Sharad Upasani	15 March 1983	9 May 1983
16	Surresh Mathur	10 May 1983	7 July 1983
17	Vikram Singh	8 July 1983	19 February 1989
18	Moreshwar Vanmali	20 February 1989	25 April 1990
19	B P Singhal	25 April 1990	1 April 1991
20	Shakti Samanta	1 April 1991	25 June 1998
21	Asha Parekh	25 June 1998	25 September 2001
22	Vijay Anand	26 September 2001	19 July 2002
23	Arvind Trivedi	20 July 2002	16 October 2003
24	Anupam Kher	16 October 2003	13 October 2004
25	Sharmila Tagore	13 October 2004	31 March 2011
26	Leela Samson	1 April 2011	16 January 2015
27	Pahlaj Nihalani	19 January 2015	19 January 2017

External links

• Official website