Madras High Court judge to watch Vetri Maran’s film ‘Manushi’ to decide on the suggestion of CBFC for 37 cuts

Justice N. of Madras High Court. Anand Venkatesh on Tuesday (August 19, 2025) decided to watch the Andrea Jeremia-starrer Tamil film ‘Manushi’ during a private screening in Chennai on Sunday (August 24), to find out if the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) is justified to suggest.

The judge, the film’s producer C. The decision was taken for a petition filed by Waitri Maran, who was also a acclaimed director, in which CBFC used to question 37 cuts made mandatory before certifying the film to fit enough for public screening in cinema theaters.

The film was produced under the production banner Grassroot Film Company of the writ petitioner and the Tamil film ‘Armram’ was directed by fame Gopi Nanner. The trailer of the film released by actor Vijay Sethupathi in April 2024 showed that this is a story that revolves around a woman’s custodial torture to be a terrorist.

In September 2024, along with the CBFC examination committee, the screening committee watched a full -length film and on the basis of the film refused to issue a censor certificate for the film that it had portrayed the state in poor light and confused “leftist communism” with “mainstream communism”.

Earlier petition

Mr. Maran contacted the High Court in June 2025 with his first writ petition, challenging blanket rejection of the sensor certificate. He said that he was neither given an opportunity to listen before denying the censor certificate nor was informed about the personal views of the members of the censor committee.

The manufacturer said that he had presented a representation to CBFC on March 29, 2025, requesting the Constitution of an expert committee seeking a direction to re -examine the film and consider his representation to the Human Rights Activists and to consider his representation and issue a speech after the examination.

Then, Justice Venkatesh wondered how the blanket rejection of the censor certificate for the entire film could be done without listing objectionable scenes, sequences, visuals, dialogues, audio clips and other aspects, which needs to be edited before issuing certificates.

On 17 June, the judge disposed of the first writ petition after submitting to CBFC that it had directed the film’s review by the court and listed objectionable parts required to edit. Then, the judge also allowed the petitioner to proceed as per law.

Second petition

Mr. Maran came to the High Court with the current writ petition, claiming that the CBFC had failed to consider the film in light of the well -established guidelines and insisted on editing simple dialogues such as ‘Sanyai’ (used a Tamil word).

When the second writ petition was listed before Justice Venkatesh on Tuesday, he said, now, he would have no choice but to see the film along with the committee members, to find out if he was justified in suggesting 37 cuts.

He on Sunday afternoon in Chennai. DGS directed the parties to arrange to play the film in a private theater in Dhinakaran Salai (earlier Greenways Road) and a senior panel counsel A. Asked Kumaraguru to ensure the presence of members of the CBFC Committee.