The Supreme Court on Thursday warned that any poem or writing on historically significant persons must follow a higher degree of care in avoiding use of obscene words. Dealing with the complaint against a bank employee, who was booked under obscenity for reproducing a “vulgar and obscene” Marathi poem in 1994 in an in-house magazine, the Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra refused to quash the charge under Section 292 IPC while let off the printer and publisher on tendering of an apology.
The accused, Devidas Ramchandra Tuljapurkar happened to be the editor of the in-house magazine which contained the poem ‘Gandhi Mala Bhetala Hota’, written by Vasant Dattatraya Gurjar in 1984. TheBench held that use of indecent language for “historically respected personalities like Mahatma Gandhi” cannot be permitted. It said that freedom of speech and expression did not allow a person to cross “contemporaneous community parameters” on decency. The Bench asked Tuljapurkar to raise all arguments in his defence before the Magistrate where the case against him is pending.