Aug. 12: Pahlaj Nihalani was yesterday removed as film censor board chairman by the Centre. Adman and lyricist Prasoon Joshi has been given charge of the board. The Telegraph zooms in on Nihalani's stint, pockmarked with controversies.

Who is Pahlaj Nihalani?

Nihalani started his career as a producer with the 1982 film Hathkadi. His notable productions in the 1980s included Aandhi-Toofan (1985) and Ilzaam (1986), which marked Govinda's debut.

Nihalani went on to produce quite a few Chunky Pandey starrers like Aag Hi Aag (1987), Paap Ki Duniya (1988) and Mitti Aur Sona (1989).

His biggest production was the 1993 box-office blockbuster Aankhen, starring Govinda and Chunky, and directed by David Dhawan.

Despite putting his money on semi-hits like Shola Aur Shabnam (1992) and Andaz (1994), Nihalani's career started waning in the mid-90s, with the Akshay Kumar-Kareena Kapoor starrer Talaash (2003) being his last notable film as producer.

Nihalani was the president of the Association of Pictures and TV Programme Producers for 29 years until he resigned in 2009.

Who is Prasoon Joshi?

The celebrated ad guru - he's been the man behind the winner Coca Cola ads and is the CEO of McCann Worldgroup India and chairman (Asia Pacific) - has earned his stripes in Bollywood primarily as a lyricist.

His filmography includes Rang De Basanti, Taare Zameen Par, Ghajini, Delhi-6, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag and Neerja.

Joshi won the National Award twice for best lyrics, for Taare Zameen Par and Chittagong.

He's also a motivational speaker, poet and screenwriter.

Joshi has been vocal in his criticism of Nihalani and the censor board under him. When Nihalani demanded some cuts in the 2015 film Margarita with a Straw, starring Kalki Koechlin, Joshi had said: "This is not an industry of irresponsible people but of creativity. A filmmaker has no intent of making a film to spoil society but, one should recognise his talent and effort behind it."

Nihalani's controversies

Nihalani was appointed chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in January 2015, but the large number of controversies during his tenure made his two-and-a-half-year stint seem much longer. Yes, enough for him to be dubbed Pahlaj Scissorhands!

• February 2015: Soon after taking over as censor board chief, Nihalani shocked the country by issuing a list of words banned by the CBFC in films. The list - that included a mix of common Hindi and English cuss words - made the film industry cry foul, but Nihalani stuck to his guns. The list was put on hold after a few days, though Nihalani and his colleagues continued bleeping out abuses.

• February 2015: Fifty Shades of Grey, the first film based on the series of erotic bestsellers by E.L. James, released worldwide, but hit a roadblock in India. Nihalani banned the film citing its theme of sadomasochism, bondage behaviour and 20 minutes of sex in its 100-minute running time. The film - and its sequel, released in February 2017 - never made to Indian cinemas, thanks to Nihalani, making pirated prints a huge draw.

• February 2015: Dum Laga Ke Haisha, starring Ayushmann Khurrana and Bhumi Pednekar, was pulled up by the censor board for using the word "lesbian". The film was allowed to release only when the word was bleeped out.

• March 2015: NH10, Anushka Sharma's debut film as producer, was initially denied certification by the board and then passed with nine cuts and adult certification. The film industry, led by Anushka, called out Nihalani's archaic ways of censorship, but the censor boss wasn't willing to budge from his stand. NH10, whose release was delayed by a week because of the censor board's refusal to certify it, won critical acclaim and was also a box-office winner.

• June 2015: Nihalani refused to certify Haraamkhor, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, because of its "bold theme" of a student-teacher relationship. After lying in the cans for two years, the movie finally saw the light of day in January 2017 after a green light from the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT).

• August 2015: Known to be a Narendra Modi loyalist, Nihalani refused to certify Battle for Banaras, a documentary by Kamal Swaroop on the electoral face-off between Modi and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal in the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat in 2014. Reason? Nihalani cited that the documentary contained "hate and inflammatory speeches" and "tries to divide people on caste and communal lines". The documentary hasn't yet been released.

• November 2015: Nihalani trained his guns on the James Bond film Spectre, forcing its producer Sony Pictures to reduce the duration of the film's kissing scenes by 50 per cent, with many of Monica Bellucci's scenes - the siren played Bond girl Lucia Sciarra - being snipped off unceremoniously.

Nihalani's move sent the country - and social media - into a tizzy, with the hashtag #SanskariJamesBond trending for days together on Twitter.

Report by Subhasish Chaudhuri, picture by Abhi Ghosh

• January 2016: Even as he was coming down unnecessarily on many films, Nihalani invited controversy for passing sex comedies like Mastizaade and Kya Kool Hain Hum 3 with minimum cuts. His defence? "We are in a Catch-22 situation. Karo toh gaali, na karo toh gaali!"

• February 2016: The trailer of Hansal Mehta's award-winning film Aligarh, starring Manoj Bajpayee and Rajkummar Rao, was given an "A' certificate by Nihalani after the censor board objected to its theme of homosexuality. Mehta termed the board "homophobic", while Nihalani claimed the "hue and cry" by the film's makers was a "cheap publicity stunt". "Tell me, is the subject of homosexuality for kids? For teenagers?" was Nihalani's defence.

• June 2016: The biggest controversy of Nihalani's tenure as CBFC chief came courtesy his very public pow-wow with Anurag Kashyap, the producer of Udta Punjab. Initially refusing to certify the Shahid Kapoor-Alia Bhatt-Kareena Kapoor film - that blew the lid off the drug menace in Punjab - Nihalani agreed to pass it with 89 cuts.

The film industry came together to protest. Kashyap took the matter to court, with Udta Punjab releasing with only one cut. The controversy meant that the film opened to near full houses and enjoyed a good box-office run.

• February 2017: Nihalani was at it again, refusing to certify Lipstick Under My Burkha, directed by Alankrita Shrivastava and starring Ratna Pathak Shah and Konkona Sensharma.

While the move sparked outrage, the bigger shock was the censor board's reason for no-certification: "The story is lady oriented, their fantasy above life. There are sexual scenes, abusive words, audio pornography and a bit sensitive touch about one particular section of society, hence film refused under guidelines."

The makers approached the FCAT and the film finally released - to packed houses and unanimous critical acclaim - in July.

• July 2017: Closest home, filmmaker Suman Ghosh was informed by the Calcutta office of the CBFC that his documentary The Argumentative Indian would be denied certification unless words like "Gujarat", "cow", "Hindutva view of India" and "Hindu India", spoken by economist Amartya Sen in the context of present-day India, were bleeped out or muted.

Ghosh went ahead and posted the 101-second trailer on his Facebook page, prompting Nihalani to label it "illegal".

"Without certification, that is illegal. Without certification, (uploading) the content is illegal. To air any clip, song, trailer, promo, you need a certificate," Nihalani had told The Telegraph. The documentary is still awaiting certification.

• July 2017: The censor board came down heavily on the word "intercourse" used in one of the mini trailers of Jab Harry Met Sejal, starring Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka. Nihalani invited further controversy by telling a TV channel that he would allow the word to be used if the channel got him one lakh votes in favour of the word. He did a volte-face when the demand was met, and director Imtiaz Ali had no choice but to change "intercourse" to "copulation" in the film.

• August 2017: Babumoshai Bandookbaaz, the story of a serial killer played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, has been the latest target, with Nihalani demanding 48 cuts in the Kushan Nandy-directed film. The producers have approached the FCAT, with the film eyeing an August 25 release.

The one that escaped: In January 2016, Nihalani allowed The Danish Girl, that told the real-life story of the world's first gender reassignment, to pass almost unscathed, with scenes of nudity and sex being allowed to be screened with an 'A' certificate.

"It's an attempt to change the image of the CBFC," Nihalani had told The Telegraph then. However, many other Hollywood films - Gone Girl to The Wolf of Wall Street to The Hateful Eight - were not