Madhya Pradesh High Court
Dipendra Singh vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh on 2 January, 2018
HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH,
BENCH AT INDORE.
W.P.No.18484/2017
(Deependra Singh V/s. State of M.P. & ors.)
6
Indore, Dt.02.01.2018
Shri M.S.Chandel, counsel for the petitioner.
Ms. Bhakti Vyas, learned Govt. Advocate for the
respondents No.1 & 2/State.
Shri Piyush Mathur, Senior Advocate with Shri Akash Vijayvargiya, Shri Amol Shrivastava, Shri Rajesh Kumar and Ms. Madhu Gadodia, counsel for the respondent No.3.
None for the respondent No.4.
Shri Piyush Mathur, Senior Advocate has drawn our attention towards the order dated 28.11.2017 passed by the Apex Court in W.P.(Cri.)No.191/2017 (Manohar Lal Sharma V/s. Sanjay Leela Bhansali & ors.).
Para 8 to 18 of the order passed in W.P. (Cri.) No.191/2017 reads as under :-
8 . At this stage, we are obligated to state that writ petitions are being filed even before the CBFC, which is the statutory authority, takes a decision. This is a most unfortunate situation showing how public interest litigation can be abused. The hunger for publicity or some other hidden motive should not propel one to file such petitions. They sully the temple of justice and intend to create dents in justice dispensation system. That apart, a petition is not to be filed to abuse others. The pleadings, as we have stated earlier, are absolutely scurrilous, vexatious and untenable in law, and we, accordingly, strike them off the record.
9 . We must say in quite promptitude that when a matter is pending or going to be dealt with by the CBFC, no one who is holding any post of public responsibility should comment on how the application HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH, BENCH AT INDORE.W.P.No.18484/2017
(Deependra Singh V/s. State of M.P. & ors.) 6 for certification is to be processed. That tantamounts to creating a sense of prejudice in the mind of the CBFC. The CBFC is expected to take decisions with utmost objectivity as per the provisions contained in the Act, the Rules framed thereunder and the guidelines. If the Court cannot prejudge the matter before the CBFC takes a decision, we fail to comprehend how anyone in public office can pre- judge the issue and make public utterances. They are not supposed to do so, and this position in law is accepted and acceded to by Mr. Maninder Singh and Mr. P.S. Narasimha, learned Additional Solicitors General, whose assistance we have sought. It should be borne in mind that we are governed by the basic tenets of the Rule of law. When the matter is pending for grant of certification, if responsible people in power or public offices comment on the issue of certification pending consideration before the statutory authority, that is a violation of the Rule of law. All concerned shall be guided by the basic premise of the Rule of law and ought not to venture into violating the same. We say nothing more and nothing less, for the present.
1 0 . Another aspect needs to be highlighted. A story told on celluloid or a play enacted on a stage or a novel articulated in a broad and large canvas or epic spoken with eloquence or a poem sung with passion or recited with rhythm has many a layer of freedom of expression of thought that requires innovation, skill, craftsmanship and, above all, individual originality founded on the gift of imagination or reality transformed into imagination or vice versa. The platform can be different and that is why, the creative instinct is respected and has the inherent protective right from within which is called artistic licence. In this regard, we may profitably reproduce a passage from Devidas Ramachandra Tuljapurkar v. State of Maharashtra and Ors.
"As far as the words "poetic licence", are concerned, it can never remotely mean a licence as used or understood in the language of law. There is no authority who gives a licence to a poet. These are words from the realm of literature. The poet assumes HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH, BENCH AT INDORE.W.P.No.18484/2017
(Deependra Singh V/s. State of M.P. & ors.) 6 his own freedom which is allowed to him by the fundamental concept of poetry. He is free to depart from reality; fly away from grammar; walk in glory by not following systematic metres; coin words at his own will; use archaic words to convey thoughts or attribute meanings; hide ideas beyond myths which can be absolutely unrealistic; totally pave a path where neither rhyme nor rhythm prevail; can put serious ideas in satires, ifferisms, notorious repartees; take aid of analogies, metaphors, similes in his own style, compare like "life with sandwiches that is consumed everyday" or "life is like peeling of an onion", or "society is like a stew"; define ideas that can balloon into the sky never to come down; cause violence to logic at his own fancy; escape to the sphere of figurative truism; get engrossed in the "universal eye for resemblance", and one can do nothing except writing a critical appreciation in his own manner and according to his understanding. When a poet says "I saw eternity yesterday night", no reader would understand the term "eternity" in its prosaic sense. The Hamletian question has many a layer; each is free to confer a meaning; be it traditional or modern or individualistic. No one can stop a dramatist or a poet or a writer to write freely expressing his thoughts, and similarly none can stop the critics to give their comments whatever its worth. One may concentrate on Classical facets and one may think at a metaphysical level or concentrate on Romanticism as is understood in the poems of Keats, Byron or Shelley or one may dwell on Nature and write poems like William Wordsworth whose poems, say some, are didactic. One may also venture to compose like Alexander Pope or Dryden or get into individual modernism like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot or Pablo Neruda. That is fundamentally what is meant by poetic licence."
We may categorically state that the artistic licence should be put on a high pedestal but the same has to be judged objectively on case to case basis.
11. In a Grammar of Politics, Harold J. Laski has stated :
"... My freedoms are avenues of choice HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH, BENCH AT INDORE.W.P.No.18484/2017
(Deependra Singh V/s. State of M.P. & ors.) 6 through which I may, as I deem fit, construct for myself my own course of conduct. And the freedoms I must possess to enjoy a general liberty are those which, in their sum, will constitute the path through which my best self is capable of attainment. That is not to say it will be attained. It is to say only that I alone can make that best self, and that without those freedoms I have not the means of manufacture at my disposal.
12. In Sudhir Kumar Saha v. Commissioner of Police and Anr. the Court has observed :
"The freedom of the individual is of utmost importance in any civilized society. It is a human right. Under our Constitution it is a guaranteed right. It can be deprived of only by due process of law. The power to detain is an exceptional power to be used under exceptional circumstances."
13. In State of U.P. v. Lalai Singh Yadav, Krishna Iyer. J opined :
"Rights and responsibilities are a complex system and the framers of our Constitution, aware of the grammar of anarchy, wrote down reasonable restrictions on libertarian exercise of freedoms."
14. Recently, in Nachiketa Walhekar v. Central Board of Film Certification and Anr., the Court has held : The thrust of the matter is whether this Court should entertain the writ petition and pass an order of injunction directing the CBFC to delete the clip and further not to get the movie released in theaters on 17th November, 2017. It is worthy to mention that freedom of speech and expression is sacrosanct and the said right should not be ordinarily interfered with. That apart, when the Respondent No. 1, CBFC, has granted the certificate and only something with regard to the Petitioner, which was shown in the media, is being reflected in the film, this Court should restrain itself in not entertaining the writ petition or granting injunction.
And again :-
"Be it noted, a film or a drama or a novel or a book is a creation of Article An artist has his own freedom to express himself in a manner which is not prohibited in law and such prohibitions are not read by implication HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH, BENCH AT INDORE.W.P.No.18484/2017
(Deependra Singh V/s. State of M.P. & ors.) 6 to crucify the rights of expressive mind. The human history records that there are many authors who express their thoughts according to the choice of their words, phrases, expressions and also create characters who may look absolutely different than an ordinary man would conceive of. A thought provoking film should never mean that it has to be didactic or in any way puritanical. It can be expressive and provoking the conscious or the sub-conscious thoughts of the viewer. If there has to be any limitation, that has to be as per the prescription in law."
15. When we say so, we are also reminded of the line spoken by Benjamin Cardozo which is to the following effect :
"Complete freedom-unfettered and undirected-there never is."
16. It is settled in law that no right is absolute but the fetters for enjoying the rights should be absolutely reasonable more so when it relates to the right to freedom of speech and expression and right to liberty. The Court has to see what kinds of fetters are being imposed and the impact of the same.
17 . Ordinarily, we would have imposed costs. As the Petitioner-in-person is a practising counsel in this Court, we refrain from doing so. However, we caution him to be careful in future.
18. In view of the aforesaid analysis, the writ petition is dismissed with no order as to costs.
In view of the aforesaid, Writ Petition is dismissed. C.c. as per rules.
(P.K. Jaiswal) (Virender Singh)
Judge Judge
ns
Neeraj
Digitally signed by Neeraj Sarvate
DN: c=IN, o=High Court of Madhya
Pradesh, ou=Administration,
postalCode=452001, st=Madhya
Pradesh,
Sarvate
2.5.4.20=1de5ec9deb10706ff5d36eb 3e8f79e1db6b2b26800a815e3f0377 420c0156e39, cn=Neeraj Sarvate Date: 2018.01.06 16:17:27 +05'30'