[8] Soon after his appointment he floated a new set of extremely strict guidelines under which few curse words will not be allowed even in the 'A' category.
He also said that depiction of violence against women will be discouraged and it will be ensured that no content which may hurt religious sentiments will be allowed.
[9] On 12 March 2015, two members of the CBFC, Ashoke Pandit and Chandraprakash Dwivedi, criticised the way in which Nihalani was running the organisation.
On 10 November 2015, a music video called "Mera Desh Mahaan", produced by Nihalani as a tribute to Prime Minister Narendra Modi was uploaded to YouTube.
[12] After the kissing scenes in the James Bond franchise film Spectre were shortened before release, Nihalani attracted criticism on the social media.
On 15 June 2016 udta Punjab went viral on torrent having watermark of 'For Censor' in an alleged leak from the CBFC.
With his legal notice to IIFA 2017, Mr Nihlani in his capacity as allegedly denigrated Chairperson CBFC oddly sought to censor award show events which was not part of said job mandate.
[25] In 2017, he disallowed the word "intercourse" in the trailer of Jab Harry Met Sejal citing the fact that Indian mentality is not ready for such progressiveness.
He was criticised for his seemingly hypocritical stance as he had produced a film called Andaz in 1994 which had songs that glorified erections ("Khada Hai") and the bump and grind of intercourse ("Main Maal Gaadi"), the very word he wished to censor.
[citation needed] In August 2017, Nihlani was eventually sacked and replaced by ad-man and poet Prasoon Joshi after a controversial stint at the CBFC.