STAND UP COMEDIANS Samay Raina, Vipul Goyal, Balraj Paramjeet Singh Ghai, Nishant Jagdish Tanwar and Sonali Thakkar (Sonali Aditya Desai) have been directed by the Supreme Court to tender unconditional apologies on their social media platforms, including YouTube, for alleged insensitive remarks against persons with disabilities.
A Division Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi also asked the Union government to place before the Court the draft guidelines it is preparing to regulate online content and ensure that the dignity and rights of all communities are safeguarded.
The Bench noted that humour and satire are integral to free expression but cautioned that commercialised content cannot cross the line of dignity.
“Humour is part of life and we can take jokes on ourselves. But when you start making fun of others, there is a breach of sensitivity,” Justice Kant observed.
Justice Bagchi underlined that commercial speech stands on a different footing from free speech. “It’s not just freedom of speech but the question is of commercial speech. When we talk of commercial speech, then there is no freedom there,” he said.
The Court emphasised that India’s diversity required particular sensitivity, adding: “These are so-called influencers of today. When you are commercialising speech, you cannot use the community and hurt their sentiments.”
