New Delhi, Jan. 21 -- The censorship trials of Tamil films Jana Nayagan and Parasakthi show that not only is the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) understaffed, but the revising committee, tasked with addressing filmmakers' grievances, is also often unreliable.

While the committee is meant to provide a secondary review of disagreements, in practice, its operations are opaque and constrained by the same issues that plague the board to begin with, leaving filmmakers and theatre owners ultimately to bear the cost of certification delays.

While Sivakarthikeyan-starrer Parasakthi released on 10 January after facing scrutiny from the CBFC over alleged factual inaccuracies and the producers appealing to the revising committee, Vijay's...