What’s in a name? plenty!

The CBFC wants NOCs for films in which dialogues or lyrics mention famous names. Bollywood reacts

Does one need a friend’s permission to say her name? Bollywood may feel relaxed about it, because it’s sort of “all in the family”, but the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), aka, the Censor Board, thinks otherwise.

And so, when filmmaker David Dhawan took his film Judwaa 2 to the Board for certification, he was asked to first get a no-objection certificate (NOC) from actor Alia Bhatt. There’s a passing mention of Alia in a line spoken by the film’s lead, Varun Dhawan; without the NOC, that would have to go.

This isn’t a new rule, but it’s a rule that’s not always enforced. Veteran actor Manoj Kumar had expressed his unhappiness after the release of the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Om Shanti Om (2007), in which he had allegedly been spoofed — Manoj Kumar said that his permission wasn’t taken.

Anurag Srivastava, the CEO of CBFC, says about the latest case, “This has been part of CBFC guidelines.”

With films such as Shootout at Lokhandwala (2007) and Enemmy (2013), names mentioned were deleted or lyrics altered.

Doesn’t this add one more layer of paperwork for the filmmaker? “It’s a little tedious,” says filmmaker Shashank Khaitan. “We’re friends in the industry and keep [it] in mind about each other’s nod of approval, but if the CBFC wants it as an NOC, there’s no harm in it.”

Not everyone appears to know that such a rule exists. Filmmaker Subhash Kapoor, whose film Jolly LLB 2 had references to Sunny Deol and Salman Khan, was surprised when asked about this rule.

Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha feels that this rule might be an interpretation of a certain clause.

Actor Alia Bhatt’s name is mentioned in passing in Judwaa 2, in which she isn’t a cast member, but her friend Varun Dhawan (inset) is the lead actor. The film team was asked to get an NOC from Alia before it could be certified