The Central Bureau of Investigation, probing the alleged bribery case against Central Board of Film Certification CEO Rakesh Kumar, has sought a list from the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry of all the movies, promos and ad films cleared by Mr. Kumar during his tenure.
The agency plans to scrutinise the list to verify if Mr. Kumar, who is now under suspension, cleared any of the movies or promos or ads out of turn during his seven-and-half-month tenure as the CEO.
“We suspect that Mr. Kumar purposely delayed the screening of these movies organised for the CBFC by the producers or the directors to procure censor certificate (CC). He had a ‘day-wise rate card’ to issue the certificate and used to charge accordingly,” a senior CBI officer told The Hindu .
The CBFC is a regulatory body under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (IB) and is headquartered in Mumbai. A film can be publicly exhibited in India only after the body issues a CC.
The agency also suspects that it was during these special screenings that the alleged bribe money was discussed. “Other than the bribe paid to get CC for the movies on time, we suspect that the larger chunk of the money was paid for not cutting the scenes which he raised objections to,” the officers said.
The CBI plans to question producers and directors of these movies in due course.
The case came to light after an agent approached the agency claiming that he was asked to pay a bribe of Rs. 70,000 for getting CC for the release of his regional movie, Mor Dauki Ke Bihav on August 15.
Meanwhile on Friday, the CBI told the special CBI court here in Mumbai that Mr. Kumar allegedly took an i-phone and a laptop to issue CC to a Tamil movie, Anjaan starring Suriya which was released earlier this month. He also allegedly took Rs. 50,000 as illegal gratification for screening of its Telugu version, the CBI remand copy read.
