The Supreme Court on Friday set aside Uttar Pradesh government's decision to suspend the screening of filmmaker Prakash Jha's "Aarakshan".
The court said the UP government had no powers to suspend screening of the film on the ground that it may cause breach of peace.
An apex court bench of Justice M Sharma and Justice Anil R Dave said the state government cannot seek deletion of certain potions of the film as this amounted to censorship.
The court said once the Central Board of Film Certification cleared the public screening of a film, no state government can raise objections on its content.
Referring to the Uttar Pradesh government's contention that reservation was a very delicate issue and certain scenes in "Aarakshan" had the potential of affecting the law and order situation, the court said it could not agree with this as the film is being shown all over the country, including in the states which are sensitive to reservation.
"Aarakshan", starring Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone, deals with caste-based reservations in the Indian education system.