Finally, the much awaited release of Thalapathy Vijay’s movie Jana Nayagan got the green light thereby ending the weeks of guessing. The Madras High Court in an important ruling has instructed the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to give the film a U/A rating thus allowing it to be released in theaters during the festival Sankranti season.
The verdict has been a great comfort to the film’s production team and actor Vijay’s supporters who were keeping their fingers crossed for a positive outcome in the legal competition over the censoring procedure. Justice P.T. Asha from the Madras High Court issued the order after listening to the case’s dispute between the film’s makers and the CBFC.
CKT’s KVN Productions is the producer and H. Vinod the director Jana Nayagan was initially meant to be a Pongal release. Next, the release date had to be moved because the certification process took longer due to the censor board’s objections.
According to reports, the CBFC pointed out some violent scenes at first and asked for changes, which the producers accepted. Later on, more objections came up including the contention that there were scenes that might cause religious sentiments and the logo being used without proper clearance from the defence department, which is a sensitive issue. Following complaints, the board referred the film to a scrutiny and expert committee, further prolonging the process.
The producers went to the Madras High Court for immediate help. Senior advocate Satish Parasaran who was representing KVN Productions argued that the film had already been considered fit for a U/A certificate after the suggested modifications. After reserving its verdict earlier, the court has now ordered the CBFC to issue the certification.
The hold-up went on for a long time and that eventually put off the certification of the dubbed versions in Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada too, since the original Tamil version had to be approved first before issuing the other language versions certificates. Now with the latest direction of the court all obstacles have disappeared.
With certification in place, Jana Nayagan officially enters the Sankranti box-office race, setting the stage for a high-voltage festive clash and renewed excitement among cinema lovers.
