This controversial film was banned during Emergency, prints were burnt, was reshot but...

Kissa Kursee Kaa (also known as Kissa Kursi Ka) is a political satire film directed by Amrit Nahata (who was a member of the Indian parliament) and it starred Shabana Azmi, Raj Kiran, Utpal Dutt, Rehana Sultan, and Manohar Singh. The movie also marked Surekha Sikri's debut in Bollywood.

The film was a satire on the politics of Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay Gandhi. Kissa Kursee Kaa depicts the amoral, corrupt ruling political class. The movie has references to the Maruti Udyog car manufacturing company set up by Sanjay Gandhi, his good friend Rukhsana Sultan, Indira Gandhi’s powerful secretary RK Dhawan, and controversial godman Dhirendra Brahmachari.

Kissa Kursee Kaa was made in April 1975 but was never released for the next three years. Due to the sensitive nature and the indirect reference to the Gandhis, the film was banned.

As Scroll reported, existing prints of the film were destroyed on the orders of Vidya Charan Shukla, who was the Information and Broadcasting Minister at the time and Sanjay Gandhi's associate. Rakesh Nahta (son of Amrit Nahta) told the portal, "The prints were taken to Delhi on the Frontier Mail train from a processing laboratory in Prabhadevi in Bombay by a group of Delhi Police and Crime Branch officials." He further claimed, "They were burnt in a 50-foot box at a Maruti factory."

After the prints were destroyed, the film was reshot, and it was finally released in 1978, retaining most of the script and the same cast. However, the movie was a major flop at the box office. 

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