I&B minister appoints 6-member panel headed by the filmmaker to `review' the Censor Board Minister of I&B Arun Jaitley has asked filmmaker Shyam Benegal and a five-member committee to review the functioning of the Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

In the 11+ months since writer, director, producer and self-professed `Modi Man' Pahlaj Nihalani has chaired the Board, it's made questionable decisions and been dogged by bad press. In response to a question on Nihalani's stewardship of the Board, Jaitley has said on record, "Well, I would like the Certification Board to be con troversy free." Now 81-year-old Dadasaheb Phalke Award win ner Benegal and his panel will have two months to undo the tangle that Nihalani has embroiled the Board in. The commit tee announced Friday also includes filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, ad guru Piyush Pandey, veteran film journalist Bhawana Somaaya, National Film Development Corporation managing director Nina Lath Gupta, and the joint secretary (Films) I&B, Sanjay Murthy as the Member Convenor. The official press note of the ministry reads, "The Committee would recommend broad guidelines procedures... for the benefit of the chairperson and other members of the Screening Committee" Cutting through the bureaucratese, a senior official in the ministry said the committee's basic work would be to end "arbitration". "This is to draw a lakshman rekha around the board.Shyam Benegal's committee will lay down broad guidelines on what they can do and what they can't," he said.