The Central Board of Film Certification has a new composition. The Government of India has reconstituted the CBFC with immediate effect, appointing 18 members to the board for a three-year term.
The panel brings together actors, filmmakers, musicians and cultural personalities from across the country, and arrives at a moment when the certification body has been at the centre of several high-profile controversies.
The Full List of 18 Members
The reconstituted CBFC comprises Vinod Anupam, Manoj Joshi, Abhishek Jain, Ricky Kej, Priyadarshan, Suniel Shetty, Hansraj Hans, Supriya Yarlagadda, Yatindra Mishra, Roopali Ganguly, Preity Zinta, Neela Madhab Panda, Pankaj Tripathi, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Pallavi Joshi, Nishigandha Wad, Waman Kendre and Ramesh Patange.
Among the more prominent appointments, Pankaj Tripathi is one of Hindi cinema’s most respected actors of the current generation. Preity Zinta brings star recognition from her peak Bollywood years and continued cultural presence. Suniel Shetty has remained active across film and television. Prosenjit Chatterjee is one of the biggest names in Bengali cinema. Priyadarshan is a veteran filmmaker with a body of work spanning multiple languages. Ricky Kej is a Grammy-winning composer with international recognition. Roopali Ganguly is well known to television audiences. Pallavi Joshi has been part of several significant films in recent years.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said the reconstitution was carried out under the powers conferred by sub-section 1 of Section 3 of the Cinematograph Act, 1952, read with Rule 3 of the Cinematograph Certification Rules, 2024. The new board will continue for three years or until further orders, whichever comes earlier.
Why the Reconstitution Was Overdue
The timing of the reconstitution carries significance beyond the appointments themselves. The CBFC board is typically reconstituted every three years. It was last reconstituted in 2017 with 12 members. That means the current reconstitution comes nearly eight years after the previous one, a gap that an official from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting acknowledged to NDTV, noting that some members of the previous board were no longer active and that the terms of some others had passed.
The board’s first meeting in six years was held on August 29, and even at that meeting, questions arose about how Revising Committees, which review certification decisions when producers or the board are dissatisfied with an Examining Committee’s ruling, had been constituted in recent years. Members sought details about who had consistently headed such committees, pointing to transparency concerns that have long surrounded the certification process.
The Controversies That Set the Context
The reconstitution comes against a backdrop of repeated flashpoints between filmmakers and the certification board, with several recent cases illustrating how consequential and contested the CBFC’s decisions can be.
The most prominent recent example is Satluj, the Diljit Dosanjh-starrer that was originally titled Punjab 95. The film was submitted to the CBFC in 2022 and spent nearly three years in the certification process. Its makers alleged that the board demanded 127 cuts. When the film eventually appeared on ZEE5 in July under the retitled name Satluj, it was released without cuts but was pulled from the platform in India within 48 hours. The film’s journey has become one of the starkest illustrations of how the certification process can shape, delay and complicate a film’s existence.
Other films have faced their own battles. Welcome To The Jungle received a UA 16+ certificate only after 18 modifications. Certification disputes around Jana Nayagan led to delays and legal proceedings. These cases have collectively made the CBFC’s processes and decision-making a persistent subject of debate within the film industry.
What the CBFC Does and How It Works
The CBFC, commonly referred to as the Censor Board, examines films before they are publicly exhibited in India. It operates under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and functions according to the Cinematograph Act, 1952 and applicable certification rules.
Films can be granted one of several certification categories depending on their content. U allows unrestricted public exhibition. UA comes with age-related caution. A is for adult audiences only. S is for a specialised class of viewers. The 2024 certification rules introduced age markers under the UA category, including UA 7+, UA 13+ and UA 16+.
The certification process works through Examining Committees in the first instance, with Revising Committees available when either the producer or the board is unsatisfied with an initial decision. The CBFC is headquartered in Mumbai and operates through nine regional offices in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram and other cities, each assisted by advisory panels drawn from various walks of life.
The process has been partially digitised through the CBFC’s e-Cinepramaan system, introduced in 2017 and designed to make certification more transparent and time-bound while allowing producers to track their applications.
What changes with the reconstitution is the people making the decisions rather than the statutory framework they operate within. Whether the new composition, which is notably larger than the previous 12-member board and includes significant film industry representation, changes the tone and pace of certification decisions is the question the industry will be watching over the next three years.