I&B Ministry notifies new film certification guidelines for CBFC

Why in the News

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has notified revised film certification guidelines for the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). The guidelines retain every aspect of the detailed 1991 version and add exactly two points. One requires a disclaimer or statutory warning in scenes depicting or involving the use, consumption or trafficking of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances. The other brings in the three new age markers under the UA (Unrestricted Public Exhibition With Parental Guidance) certificate, created by the Cinematograph Rules, 2024. The certification standards a film is judged against therefore remain those framed in 1991, while the certificate categories themselves were rewritten in 2024.

What does the Central Board of Film Certification do?

1. Its statutory basis: It is a statutory body under the Cinematograph Act, 1952, functioning under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
2. What it certifies: No film may be publicly exhibited in India unless it has been certified by the Board, so certification is a condition of release rather than an advisory rating.
3. What the certificate decides: The Board may certify a film for unrestricted public exhibition, restrict it by age, restrict it to specialised audiences, or refuse certification, and it may require cuts as a condition of a category.
4. What guides the decision: The Board applies guidelines notified by the central government under the Act, which is the instrument that has now been revised.

What are the two additions to the guidelines?

1. The narcotics warning: Scenes depicting or involving the use, consumption or trafficking of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances must now carry the warning “Illicit Narcotics Destroy Health and Guarantees Imprisonment, Say No to Drugs.”
2. The age markers: The guidelines now specify the three categories within the UA certificate, UA 7+, UA 13+ and UA 16+, marking content suitable for children aged seven, 13 and 16 respectively.
3. What triggers an age marker: Where the Board considers it necessary to caution a parent or guardian on whether a ward may be allowed to see a film, it certifies the film for unrestricted public exhibition with an endorsement to that effect.

What do the retained 1991 standards require?

1. Crime and violence: The Board is to ensure that anti social activities and violence are not glorified or justified.
2. Operational detail of crime: The modus operandi of criminals, and visuals or words likely to incite the commission of an offence, are not to be depicted.
3. Alcohol: Scenes justifying or glorifying drinking are to be avoided.
4. Children: Scenes showing children in violence as victims, perpetrators or forced witnesses, or subjected to any form of child abuse, are not to be presented needlessly.
5. Disability and animals: The Board is to discourage scenes showing abuse or ridicule of persons with disabilities, and scenes showing cruelty to or abuse of animals.

Why does the alignment with the 2024 categories matter?

1. The gap it closes: The age bands were created in the Rules in 2024, while the guidelines the Board actually applies continued to describe a single undifferentiated UA category until this notification.
2. What a graded band changes for a film: A film that would previously have carried one UA label now carries an age specific one, so the same content can be placed at a different point on the scale rather than cut to reach a category.
3. Where the burden shifts: An age marker transfers the decision on viewing to the parent or guardian, since a UA film remains open to unrestricted public exhibition whatever the band.
4. What the Board has asked of the industry: The Board’s Chairperson has asked filmmakers to study the revised guidelines before submitting applications, and asked film associations to circulate them within the industry.

Challenges to the film certification framework

1. Certification operates as prior restraint: A film cannot be exhibited at all until the Board clears it, so the delay in a decision has the same effect as a refusal for a film with a fixed release date. Eg. The Supreme Court upheld pre censorship of films in K.A. Abbas v. Union of India (1970), on the ground that film affects audiences differently from other media.
   The Fix: Fix a binding outer limit for the Board’s decision and treat expiry of that limit as deemed certification in the applied category.
2. Standards are open ended in application: Terms such as glorification of violence or anti social activity are matters of judgement, so identical content can be treated differently across examining committees. Eg. The Cinematograph Act, 1952 grounds refusal in the reasonable restrictions of Article 19(2), which are broad heads rather than stated tests.
   The Fix: Publish the reasoned orders of examining and revising committees, so a standard is visible from decided cases rather than from the text alone.
3. Extra statutory pressure after certification: A certified film still faces protest, litigation and State level obstruction, so certification does not settle the right to exhibit. Eg. In Prakash Jha Productions v. Union of India (2011) the Supreme Court held that a State cannot ban a certified film on law and order grounds and must maintain order instead.
   The Fix: Require a State suspending exhibition of a certified film to record reasons and obtain judicial confirmation within a fixed period.
4. A single framework for unequal platforms: Films require certification while streaming content is governed by self regulation, so the same content faces different scrutiny by mode of release. Eg. Online curated content runs under the self classification and three tier grievance structure of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
   The Fix: Align the age classification bands used in film certification with those used for online curated content, so one scale runs across platforms.
5. Warnings substitute for classification: A mandatory on screen disclaimer is easy to add and easy to disregard, so it does little where the depiction itself is the concern. Eg. The statutory anti tobacco warning has run in Indian films for years alongside continued depiction of smoking.
   The Fix: Attach the depiction of narcotics to a defined age band in the classification scale, rather than treating the warning as the whole remedy.

Conclusion

The certification standards and the certificate categories were revised a generation apart, and this notification is the step that brings them into one document. The substantive tests a film is judged against remain those of 1991, so the change is one of classification rather than of standards. The guidelines are notified and in force, and the Board has asked the industry to study them before filing applications. The thing to watch is how the three UA bands are applied in practice, since a graded scale only changes outcomes if films are placed across it rather than clustered in one band.

Back2Basics: Cinematograph (Amendment) Act, 2023

1. What it introduced on piracy: It created offences for unauthorised recording and exhibition of films, with imprisonment of three months to three years and a fine.
2. Age based categories: It replaced the single UA category with age based sub categories, which the Cinematograph Rules, 2024 then specified as UA 7+, UA 13+ and UA 16+.
3. Validity of a certificate: It made a certificate valid perpetually, removing the earlier limit of ten years.
4. Revisional power removed: It withdrew the central government’s revisional power over a certified film, in line with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Union of India v. K.M. Shankarappa (2000).

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2014, GS2, 12] What do you understand by the concept “freedom of speech and expression”? Does it cover hate speech also? Why do the films in India stand on a slightly different plane from other forms of expression? Discuss.”