Govt confused over Bollywood smoking

[1]

To allow or not to allow smoking in films? The government appears confused. After the heavy smoking scenes by Shah Rukh Khan in Don-2, the information and broadcasting ministry had asked the health ministry to seek the law ministry’s opinion.

The law ministry said the matter was ‘sub judice’ and the health ministry can ‘act accordingly’.

A confused health ministry plans to send the file back, saying it was ‘unable to figure out what the law ministry was trying to say’.

The health ministry feels the opinion sent by the law ministry ‘appears irrelevant’. The health ministry clarified that a recent notification on banning smoking in films suggested that either ‘smoking scenes be blurred or edited’.

The notification also suggested that “before the movie starts, the hero must talk about the harmful effects of smoking”. It goes on to mandate that an “anti-smoking scroll must run” whenever a smoking scene is depicted.

After the notification a few months back, members of the Central Board of Film Certification met I&B minister Ambika Soni to ‘highlight difficulties’. One of the problems, members argued, was that it would cause films on the verge of release to overshoot budgets if they had to ‘reshoot scenes’.

Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt also pointed out a 2005 high court stay order on banning smoking in films, and some other legal issues.

Before Don-2 was released, its producer met the I&B minister to discuss “practical problems” in deleting the smoking scenes, sources said.