A Serving Officer Filed a Petition. A High Court Agreed It Was Worth Asking.
On May 20, the Delhi High Court directed India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the film certification board (officially called the Central Board of Film Certification, or CBFC) to examine whether the blockbuster spy thriller Dhurandhar: The Revenge violated the Official Secrets Act, 1923. The court was responding to a petition filed by Deepak Kumar, a head constable with the Sashastra Seema Bal - a border-guarding force under the Home Ministry. His argument was specific: certain scenes in the film depicted tactical procedures, intelligence methods, and operational patterns closely enough to real operations that hostile agencies could study them.
The court's Division Bench, led by Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, did not dismiss this. It said, "Even if the movie is a work of fiction and is made for entertainment purposes, the impact of the movie can't be denied." The court stopped short of staying the film. But it told both the Ministry and the CBFC to treat the petition as a formal representation and take a decision.
The Scale of What Is at Stake
Dhurandhar is not a small film. Part 1 alone crossed Rs 1,328 crore at the worldwide box office after its December release. Part 2 - the one at the center of this petition - had crossed Rs 1,146 crore in India net alone by Day 62. Together, the two parts place this franchise among the top five highest-grossing Indian films of all time. The film is headed to Netflix globally and will stream on JioHotstar in India.
Tens of millions of people will watch this film. Including, without question, intelligence analysts working for Pakistan's ISI and China's MSS.
The franchise is already banned in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain - six countries that found its content politically or strategically sensitive enough to block. Hostile neighbors took it seriously. India's own certification body had no specific framework to evaluate it.
The film's real-life inspirations add weight to this. Ravindra Kaushik - recruited by the Research and Analysis Wing in the 1970s, trained for two years, then deployed to Pakistan where he enrolled at Karachi University, joined the Pakistan Army's Military Accounts Department, and rose to the rank of Major before being betrayed in 1983 - is widely cited as a key inspiration. Major Mohit Sharma, an Ashoka Chakra awardee from 1 Para Special Forces who operated in disguise in Kashmir before being killed in action in Kupwara in March 2009, is another. His parents had already filed a petition in the Delhi High Court before Part 1's release, seeking a stay on the grounds that their son's story was used without family or Army consent. That petition was unsuccessful, and the film released on schedule.
Retired Colonel Bhupinder Shahi, who served as the film's military consultant, said publicly that his role involved liaising with the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Home Affairs to arrange facilities and authenticate the content. He also narrated real operative experiences to the filmmakers - including the story of an agent who spent months in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, got exposed once, was saved by a local woman, and was extracted, debriefed, and awarded on return.
A retired Colonel with real contacts, sharing real operational textures, fed into a film that a certification body staffed by film professionals then reviewed for age-appropriateness. Nobody with a security clearance checked what left the room.
The Structural Gap
India's film certification board is tasked under the Cinematograph Act, 1952, to evaluate films on grounds including the security of the state. The Act explicitly says a film shall not be certified if any part of it is against the security of the State or is likely to incite the commission of any offense. On paper, the mandate exists.
In practice, the CBFC has no defense or intelligence experts on its examining committees. It has no protocol for referring military-themed content to the Ministry of Defence, the Army, the RAW, or the Intelligence Bureau. Guidelines specifically covering spy films, covert operations depictions, and intelligence methodology do not exist.
The Official Secrets Act of 1923 prohibits the communication of information useful to an enemy and the wrongful communication of classified information. But the Act does not define what a "secret" document is - any information is covered if the government classifies it as secret, and the Act leaves that determination entirely to the government. Filmmakers have no way to know in advance what they may be crossing. The CBFC has no way to check.
This is a governance vacuum. Films like URI: The Surgical Strike and Raazi operated in the same legal gray zone. But Dhurandhar's scale, its detailed military consultant credits, and its explicit inspiration from living intelligence operatives make the gap impossible to ignore.
What Has Already Been Tried
India has attempted reform of the Official Secrets Act twice in recent memory. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission, in June 2006, recommended repealing the Act entirely and replacing it with a chapter in the National Security Act. The Group of Ministers that reviewed the Commission's report in 2008 rejected the repeal and only suggested amendments to remove ambiguities. No amendments followed.
In 2015, the government set up a committee to review the Act in light of the Right to Information Act. The committee submitted its report to the Cabinet Secretariat in 2017, recommending that the Act be made more transparent. No action has been taken on those recommendations. The Act remains unchanged from its 1923 colonial form.
The Cinematography Amendment Bill of 2023 updated certification rules and introduced new categories but contained no provisions for defense or intelligence review of spy-genre content. This court case formally identifies that as a gap.
How Other Countries Fixed This
The United States - Pentagon and CIA Liaison Offices
The US Department of Defense has maintained a Hollywood liaison office for decades. When a filmmaker wants to use military equipment, bases, or personnel, they must submit their script for review. The US government has worked on over 800 major films and more than 1,000 television titles. The mechanism is simple: cooperation is conditional on content review.
The CIA established its own entertainment industry liaison program in the mid-1990s to ensure its interactions do not harm Agency equities or put any officers at unnecessary risk. This is not blanket censorship. Filmmakers who do not request government cooperation are free to make their films without review. The mechanism only engages when filmmakers want access to real facilities, real personnel, or official endorsement.
India's Bollywood studios actively sought Defence Ministry cooperation for Dhurandhar - including locations, equipment, and personnel consultants. That cooperation came without any equivalent security review requirement attached.
The United Kingdom - Defence and Security Media Advisory System
The UK runs a voluntary but institutionalized system called the Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee, with members representing the Home Office, Ministry of Defence, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Cabinet Office. Media organizations can submit content for advisory guidance before release. It is advisory, not censorial - it gives filmmakers a mechanism to self-check before release. If a filmmaker uses it and then ignores the guidance, legal liability shifts sharply toward them. India has nothing equivalent.
Who Is Accountable
Three bodies share responsibility for this gap. The CBFC reviewed Dhurandhar and certified it without any defense consultation. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting received two separate representations about this film - one from Major Mohit Sharma's family in November, and the SSB constable's petition in March - and issued no formal guidelines in the window between those two events. The Ministry of Defence provided cooperation to the filmmakers through Colonel Shahi's liaison work without attaching a formal script review requirement. All three had leverage. None used it.
What Would It Cost
Building a formal Defense-Entertainment Liaison Cell - a small permanent unit within the Ministry of Defence with two to three senior retired officers and one legal counsel - would cost under Rs 2 crore annually. Adding a classified content review protocol as a sub-function of an existing ministry is not an infrastructure project. It is a decision.
The cost of not acting is harder to quantify. India's intelligence apparatus spends thousands of crore annually on the security of undercover operatives. A film that reveals operational patterns to hostile agencies does not require a hostile agency to recruit a spy. It requires them to buy a ticket, or wait for Netflix.
What Needs to Happen
The Delhi High Court has handed the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the CBFC a clear instruction: examine this, and decide. That decision should not be limited to Dhurandhar. It should produce a standing framework.
First, the CBFC needs a Defense Consultation Protocol. Any film depicting covert intelligence operations, undercover military or paramilitary personnel, or tactical field procedures should be referred to a designated cell within the Ministry of Defence before certification - mandatory referral with a fixed timeline of thirty days maximum, after which the CBFC proceeds with or without objections noted on record.
Second, government cooperation must come with conditions. When a filmmaker requests access to Army bases, equipment, or personnel through official channels, that access should be conditional on a classified content review of the relevant scenes. The US Department of Defense has operated exactly this mechanism for decades.
Third, the Official Secrets Act of 1923 needs a film and entertainment-specific provision. The Act currently makes no reference to fictional depictions. A specific clause covering entertainment content that depicts intelligence methodologies, operative identity patterns, or tactical procedures - with clear definitions - would give both filmmakers and the CBFC a legal reference point before release, not after.
None of this is censorship. What cannot continue is the current system, where a film consultant can share real operative textures with a production team and no one with a security clearance ever reviews what goes into the final cut.