They say what goes around comes around. That's what seems to have happened to Pahlaj Nihalani, former Sanskar-in-chief Censor Board chief and master butcher of films.
Nihalani's two-year stint as the chairman of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) was the stuff of nightmares for filmmakers as he was best known for wanting to chop scenes from films—sometimes one scene, sometimes 14—sometimes in the name of morality and other times due to political compulsions. But now, it seems that Nihalani's film Rangeela Raja is facing the same fate as the films he had chopped, and the ex-CBFC chief is going to court to save his film.
ANI reported that Nihalani has moved the Bombay High Court over 20 cuts to his film.
But Nihalani is clearly not happy with these cuts, claiming that the 20 cuts to his film flouted the CBFC guidelines.
Ironically, Nihalani was the self-appointed upholder of sanskar only when he was CBFC chief. As soon has he was replaced with Prasoon Joshi, he took up the distributorship for erotic thriller Julie 2.
And while Nihalani has approached the court now, he had, after a Bombay High Court verdict in favour of Udta Punjab, said that it will open the door for vulgar films. The CBFC had approved the film with 13 cuts that the makers of the film had said impacted the flow of the film.
Under Nihalani's leadership, the CBFC had also suggested 14 cuts to Madhur Bhandarkar's Indu Sarkar. It was during Nihalani's tenure that the duration of kissing scenes from the James Bond film Spectre was reduced.