Five comics and YouTubers, including Ranveer Allahbadia, are facing the heat after clips of an episode of the Samay Raina-hosted YouTube roast show went viral and snowballed into a major controversy over profanity. Police complaints have been filed against them under Sections that deal with obscenity and have jail terms. However, a 2024 verdict by the Supreme Court might offer more clarity on the latest controversy and hope for the gaali boys.
The Supreme Court observation from March 2024 has to do with the YouTube series College Romance. The SC verdict in the case draws a clear distinction between expletives (gaali) or profanity and obscenity. Obscene language might not be interpreted as obscenity per se.
In the 2024 verdict, the Supreme Court said, “Obscenity relates to material that arouses sexual and lustful thoughts, which is not at all the effect of abusive language or profanities”. For the College Romance episode, it said, “such language [employed in the episode] may evoke disgust, revulsion, or shock”.
While obscenity’s main purpose is to titillate and trigger lustful thoughts, the purpose of obscene jokes made by Allahbadia of BeerBiceps fame and other panellists was more for shock value.
The controversy stems from Allahbadia asking a contestant an outrageous question: “Watch your parents have sex every day for the rest of your life, or would you join in once and stop it forever?”
Now, there is legal trouble for them and many others in two states — Assam and Maharashtra — where FIRs have been registered.
What the five did was engage in obscene jokes on a show that was uploaded on YouTube.
They have been booked under Sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), IT Act, and the Cinematograph Act.
UNDER WHICH SECTIONS HAVE RANVEER ALLAHBADIA AND SAMAY RAINA BEEN CHARGED
The FIR in Guwahati names the five. Allahbadi, Raina, Ashish Chanchlani, Jaspreet Singh, and Apoorva Makhija.
“The FIR accuses them of promoting obscenity and engaging in sexually explicit discussions,” Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
Guwahati Crime Branch has registered a case under Sections 79/95/294/296 of BNS 2023 read with Sec 67 of IT Act, 2000, read with Section 4/7 of Cinematograph Act 1952 read with Section 4/6 of â Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986.
The Cinematography Act of 1952 Section 4 mandates that films must be certified by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) before they can be publicly exhibited. Section 7 prescribes penalties for contraventions of the Act.
The FIR in Maharashtra names 30 people, including the five on the India’s Got Latent panel.
The details of the sections under which they have been charged are these:
Section 79 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023 Act for insulting a woman’s modesty through words, gestures, sounds, or objects. It also involves intruding on a woman’s privacy.
Section 196 of the BNS of 2023 criminalises speech or actions that promote hatred or enmity between groups. The section aims to maintain social harmony and prevent acts that can disrupt peace.
Section 299 of the BNS deals with deliberate and malicious acts that insult or attempt to insult the religious beliefs of any class of people in India.
Section 296 of the BNS of 2023 deals with obscene acts and songs in public places. It aims to maintain public decency and prevent disturbances in public spaces.
Section 3(5) of the BNS of 2023 establishes joint criminal liability when multiple people work together to commit a crime. This means that each person is responsible for the crime as if they had committed it alone.
Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 criminalises the publication or transmission of obscene material in electronic form.
WHAT IS THE COLLEGE ROMANCE CASE OF 2024?
In March 2023, the Delhi High Court ordered the registration of an FIR against the makers and an actor of College Romance, a YouTube series, saying that the language used in it was obscene, profane and vulgar, and would deprave and corrupt the minds of young people.
The case reached the Supreme Court in May 2023 and the SC stalled action against TVF, the show’s director Simarpreet Singh and actor Apoorva Arora.
Then, in March 2024, the Supreme Court delivered a crucial verdict ruling that content having profanities and swear words on social media and OTT platforms cannot be regulated by “criminalising it as obscene”.
The two-judge bench of Justices AS Bopanna and PS Narasimha noted that the Delhi High Court had taken the meaning of the language in its literal sense, outside the context in which such expletives have been spoken, reported news agency PTI.
It quashed the case as “a disproportionate and excessive measure that violates freedom of speech, expression, and artistic creativity”.
“It is well-established from the precedents cited that vulgarity and profanity do not per se amount to obscenity. While a person may find vulgar and expletive-filled language to be distasteful, unpalatable, uncivil, and improper, that by itself is not sufficient to be ‘obscene’,” the two-judge bench of SC ruled.
“Obscenity relates to material that arouses sexual and lustful thoughts, which is not at all the effect of the abusive language or profanities that was employed in the episode. Rather, such language may evoke disgust, revulsion, or shock,” the SC ruled, making a clear distinction between obscene language and obscenity per se.
There are many ways the state machinery can invoke laws to punish people. The question is about the intent of the participants in the show and the two state governments. What is clear though from the 2024 Supreme Court judgment in the College Romance case, is that the judiciary treats obscenity and vulgar language as two very distinct things.