Much to the delight of Bollywood filmmakers, Pahlaj Nihalani was removed as chief of the Central Board of Film Certification and his place was taken by Prasoon Joshi. However, Joshi failed to report on duty on day one owing to his ill health and this caused chaos at the office.
A source from the Censor Board revealed, “On Friday, before Pahlaj Nihalani left his office he had certified many films including Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi’ and the Sidharth Malhotra-Jacqueline Fernandez thriller ‘A Gentleman’, scheduled to be released on the two Fridays to come one after the other. These producers were to collect their censor certificates on Monday as per the rules. When Prasoon didn’t turn up at the CBFC office on Monday, all hell broke loose since there was no chairperson to organise the smooth delivery of the certificates.”
In a state of panic, the filmmakers contacted former chief Pahlaj Nihalani, who stepped in to help them out. “Pahlaj had no choice but to step in to help them out. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have got the certificate. Bareilly Ki Barfi would have definitely missed its release this Friday.”
As for Joshi, he is expected to start attending office as the new CBFC chairperson from Friday.
