The Supreme Court yesterday (Januay 27) refused to grant the makers and artistes of web series Tandav and Amazon Prime Video’s Aparna Purohit protection from arrest. The series is in the eye of a major controversy for allegedly hurting religious sentiments and insulting religion, punishable under sections 153A and 295 of the Indian Penal Code. A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R.S. Reddy and M.R. Shah, while hearing a bunch of petitions seeking quashing of criminal complaints against the makers of the series, said, “Your right to freedom of speech is not absolute. You cannot play the role of character that hurts the sentiments of a community.”
The apex court was hearing petitions seeking quashing of criminal complaints lodged in various states against producer-director Ali Abbas Zafar, producer Himanshu Mehra, writer Gaurav Solanki, artistes Saif Ali Khan and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, and Aparna Purohit. FIRs had been filed in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. In U.P. alone, three FIRs had been lodged — in Lucknow, NOIDA and Shahjahanpur — for alleged inappropriate depiction of the U.P. police personnel, deities, and adverse portrayal of a character playing the role of Prime Minister in the series. The SC yesterday issued notice for clubbing the multiple FIRs against those associated with the web series, in the various states.