Senior lawyers Harish Salve, Mukul Rohatgi along with Ameet Naik appeared for the creators and actors of the show. Speaking to us, Ameet Naik said, “This is a landmark judgment of the Supreme Court overruling a judgement of the Delhi High Court, holding that vulgarity and profanity cannot be equated with obscenity and dismissing the FIR filed against the makers of the show College Romance, its actors and writers under Section 67 / 67A of the IT Act, 2000. This decision is a breath of fresh air for content creators as it upholds fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression and holds that the applicability of obscenity under section 67 and 67A of the IT act for vulgarity and profanity has to be viewed in the context and not in isolation.”
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What did the SC say?
The Supreme Court said that the Delhi High Court has taken the meaning of the language in its literal sense, outside the context in which such expletives have been spoken. The SC bench said, “While the literal meaning of the terms used may be sexual in nature and they refer to sexual acts, their usage does not arouse sexual feelings or lust in any viewer of ordinary prudence and common sense. Rather, the common usage of these words is reflective of emotions of anger, rage, frustration, grief, or perhaps excitement. Similarly, the metric to assess obscenity and legality of any content cannot be that it must be appropriate to play in the courtroom while maintaining the court’s decorum and integrity. Such an approach unduly curtails the freedom of expression that can be exercised and compels the maker of the content to meet the requirements of judicial propriety, formality, and official language. Here again, the High Court committed a serious error in decision-making.”
The SC observed, “When we notice the use of such language in the context of the plot and theme of the web series, which is a light-hearted show on the college lives of young students, it is clear that the use of these terms is not related to sex and does not have any sexual connotation. Neither did the creator of the web series intend for the language to be taken in its literal sense nor is that the impact on a reasonable viewer who will watch the material. Therefore, there is a clear error in the legal approach adopted by the High Court in analysing and examining the material to determine obscenity.”