Pahlaj Nihalani removed as CBFC chairman: Noted lyricist Prasoon Joshi will take charge as the new chief of central film certification body. (PTI)

Pahlaj Nihalani was on Friday removed as the chief of Central Board of Film Certification, Times Now and CNN News 18 reported. Noted lyricist Prasoon Joshi will take charge as the new chief of central film certification body. Nihalani tenure as CBFC chief was marred by a number of controversies. NDTV reports that Nihalani’s colleagues had accused him of treating the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) like his personal fiefdom. Indianexpress.com had on July 25 reported about the rumors that Pahlaj Nihalani might have to resign from his post.

“He was definitely not good for the film industry. Many directors and producers were very unhappy with Nihalani’s work,” a source told Indianexpress.com. In some of his recent controversies, Nihalani had objected to the movie Lipstick Under My Burkha for being too lady-oriented and had objected to the word “intercourse” in Jab Harry Met Sejal trailer. The censor board argued that “sexual scenes, abusive words, audio pornography (phone sex)” and said that the film might offend Muslims. However, later the board suffered major embarrassment after Director Alankrita Shrivastava won her case at an appeals tribunal.

#PahlajNihalani gets an `A’ certificate from CBFC. `A’ for Axed. Prasoon Joshi to replace him — T S Sudhir (@Iamtssudhir) August 11, 2017

Yes yes yes finally the dark times for Indian entertainment is over #PahlajNihalani is finally GONE!!

Prasoon Joshi, high hopes from you — Sharanya Narayanan (@iamsharz) August 11, 2017

Pic 1 : How close #PahlajNihalani was to reality

Pic2 : How close #PrasoonJoshi will be to reality#PahlajNihalaniSacked #NihalaniSacked pic.twitter.com/vNqhoGrHX3 — Yo Yo Funny Singh (@moronhumor) August 11, 2017

In a major Twitter backlash, Pahlaj was named as ‘Sanskari’ Censor Board Chief after he slashed a kissing scene in James Bond movie Spectre for being ‘too excessive’. In another controversy, Nihalani had asked the makers of 2016 movie Udta Punjab to drop the reference of Punjab from the movie title and asked for 89 cuts which included cuss words. The former CBFC chief also demanded the removal of words like “Gujarat” and “cow” from the Amartya Sen documentary The Argumentative Indian. He also said that he has a problem with actors’ on-screen drinking and smoking despite having a warning on the screen.