Lakshmi Lawrence Kadhal CBFC row: Madras High Court judge watches film submitted on pen drive, reserves orders

Madras High Court judge reserves orders after viewing Tamil film Lakshmi Lawrence Kadhal, previously denied CBFC certification.

Justice R. Kalaimathi of the Madras High Court watched the Tamil movie Lakshmi Lawrence Kadhal submitted before the court by the film production firm in a pen drive and reserved orders on an appeal preferred against the denial of exhibition certificate to it by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

When Central government senior panel counsel K.R. Samratt, representing the CBFC, expressed doubt about whether the production firm had submitted the same version of the movie before the court as it had before the Board, the judge wondered why such doubts were being raised against the appellant.

Stating she had watched the movie from the pen drive submitted in a sealed cover, the judge asked the petitioner’s counsel K. Chandramohan, as well as the CBFC counsel, to file their short written submissions before reserving her verdict, without mentioning when it would be pronounced.

Youreka Cinema School, owned by J. Joseph Mohan Kumar, had produced Lakshmi Lawrence Kadhal with a cast that included several debutant actors playing the lead roles. He said, yesteryear actor K.R. Vijaya and acclaimed drums player Sivamani had played important characters alongside the new faces.

The lyrics for the songs had been penned by Vairamuthu and the movie was submitted for certification on September 10, 2025, on payment of ₹28,084 towards certification fee. On September 29, 2025, the CBFC’s Chennai Region Director D. Balamurali wrote to the producer refusing to issue a certificate for the movie.

The reason cited for denial of the certificate was that the five-member examining committee was of the view that the movie had multiple visuals and dialogues contemptuous of religious groups. The producer chose to take the matter on appeal to a nine-member revising committee of the CBFC but ended up facing the same result.