Those who were hoping to spend their Sunday watching The Dirty Picture on the small screen were hugely disappointed.

After cutting as many as 59 scenes from the film, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting decided against the telecast on a popular channel on Sunday. A source from Balaji Telefilms who followed the development closely reveals, “It’s ridiculous for the ministry to overrule the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) decison to telecast the film with a U/A certificate. It’s very upsetting, their stand is that we air the film after 10 pm, despite going ahead with the eight-and-a-half minute long cuts and making 36 voluntary and 26 compulsory cuts. We have received strong support from other members of the fraternity like Mahesh Bhatt who plan to take this issue up. It’s a wrong precedent that the ministry is setting.

Also it’s a paradox that they want to ban the same film which they gave three National awards.” Producer Ekta Kapoor took to her microblogging account to vent her anger over the matter. She wrote, “We can show rape, an 8-year old’s marriage to 40 year old, we can show reality/comedy shows with vulgar content but we can’t show a liberal womans story who lived life on her own terms-truly this is our nations DIRTY PICTURE!” Film maker Pooja Bhatt who’s making Jism 2 chimed in saying, “Not sure what the hue and cry about The Dirty Picture being denied an afternoon slot is about! I want nothing less than a 11 pm slot for Jism2! I am making an adult film and want a slot that caters to adults on TV. Why would I water my film down to suddenly cater to a family audience?”