- This is one aspect of fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution that keeps hitting the headlines quite often necessitating the legal experts and luminaries to interpret fairly and judiciously. Of course, the final adjudicator on the matter is none other than the custodian of the Constitutional propriety, the Supreme Court which is looked upon as the last resort by the countrymen. Seeking recourse and relief from the increasingly belligerent moral custodians and hyper-activists tantamount to sustained harassment which must be upheld by the judiciary to ensure the law remains fair to one and all.
PC: timesofindia
- After sustained campaign denigrating the imagined love-jihad as a social menace, raising a hue and cry about inter-faith marriages, taking moral policing to an entirely unprecedented level, telling us what to eat and what not to eat, and other extremities which should have been anathema to a progressive society, the upholders of morality have trained their guns on Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms now. As the pandemic wrought havoc on the country’s economy like never seen before, the digital media platforms have been the lone silver lining garnering not only widespread patronage amongst the discerning audience but also extending its reach far and wide.
- As we are all aware, a political satire based web-series Tandav on Amazon Prime is in the news for allegedly hurting religious sentiments – how often have we heard this before – and as a consequence, faces FIRs in multiple states despite the cast and crew tendering unconditional apologies as well as deleting the controversial passages from the play. When the matter reached the hallowed portals of the Supreme Court, the Apex Court in a surprising move refused to grant interim protection from arrest by speciously observing that the right to free speech is not absolute and cannot come at the cost of hurting the rights of others.
PC: Manish Yadav
- For the uninitiated, Article 19(1) of the Constitution protects the citizen’s fundamental right to speech, and citing hurt sentiments as a reason to deny the same does not figure among the reasonable restrictions to free speech as elaborated in Article 19(2). Thus, it can be easily deduced that hurt to sentiments is subjective as what can be construed as entertainment or information or a legitimate belief to one individual could be perceived as deeply disturbing or falsehood or blasphemy for another. There must be a clear case of the offence being committed that endangers public order by inciting imminent violence for adjudicating on free speech cases.
- In the instant case, the makers of Tandav have not succeeded in inciting any such offence other than zealous activists whipping up a frenzy in multiple states forcing the police to file cases. Knowing well how our judicial machinery functions, very few individuals have the resources or temperament to withstand such pressure. Recently, hyperbole and aggressive practitioner like journalist Arnab Goswami was granted relief from arrest, rightly so, upholding the right to free speech. Similar relief could have been extended to the Tandav cast and crew as well. Adopting different yardsticks defeats the purpose of allowing the law and ordinary agencies to harass the affected lot. Par for the course move is to expect all courts to call the police bluff and uphold the free speech rights without any ambivalence.
