India’s Got Latent Row: Supreme Court directs comedians Samay Raina, Vipul Goyal, Balraj Singh Ghai, Sonali Thakkar, and Nishant Tanwar to issue public apologies on social media over insensitive jokes targeting specially-abled people.
According to Live Law, the plea is listed with the cases of Ranveer Allahabadia and Ashish Chanchalani. They sought clubbing of FIRs over India’s Got Latent controversy.
The case was heard by the bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi.
The court also said that humour is a part of life, but that doesn’t mean that one should start “laughing at others”. “And this is what so-called influencers of today should bear in mind. They are commercialising speech. The community at large should not be utilised to hurt the sentiments of certain sections. It’s not only freedom of speech, it’s commercial speech,” the outlet reported the court as saying.
The counsel for the comedians informed the court that comedians have tendered an “unconditional apology”.
Senior advocate Aparajita Singh, who appeared for the SMA Cure Foundation, told the court that although comedians have apologised for their comments, there should be guidelines on what one can and cannot do.
“My suggestion is to let the comedians spread awareness about the issue. Let them use their influence to take this issue forward. That would be the best apology,” Singh suggested.
The counsel for the comedians said that it would be taken care of. “Go apologise on your podcasts, etc. Then consider what Aparajita has suggested. Then tell us about the cost/penalty you are willing to bear,” the court said.
Attorney-General for India R Venkataramani said that the guidelines would take some time and that there can’t be a “complete gag”, Live Law reported.
The Supreme Court has orderd Centre to frame guidelines for social media to put an end to comments that offend or ridicule specially-abled people, women, children and senior citizens. The court added that such framework should also have suggestions from stakeholders.
The court noted, “Proposed guidelines should not be a reaction to any particular incident and should be broad enough to cater to future needs,” Live Law reported.
The apex court also ordered that comedians should publicly apologise, adding that they should post apology on social media.
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