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(6) Where obscenity and art are mixed , art must be so preponderating as to throw obscenity in shadow or render the obscenity so trivial and insignificant that it can have no effect and can be overlooked. (7) Treating with sex in a manner offensive to public decency or morality which are the words of our Fundamental Law judged by our national standards and  considered likely to pender to lascivious, purient or sexually precocious minds must determine the result. (8) When there is propagation of ideas, opinions and informations or public interests or profits, the interests of society may tilt the scales in favour of free speech and expression. Thus books on medical science with intimate illustrations and photographs though in a sense immodest, are not to be considered obscene, but the same illustrations and photographs collected in a book from without the medical text would certainly be considered to be obscene.

(9) Obscenity without a preponderating social purpose or profit cannot have the Constitutional protection of free speech or expression. Obscenity is treating with sex in a manner appealing to the carnal side of human nature or having that tendency. Such a treating with sex is offensive to modesty and decency.

(10) Knowledge is not a part of the guilty act. The offender's knowledge of the obscenity of the book is not required under the law and it is a case of strict liability.

8. A creative exploration in the field of liberty of expression and the impact of certification under the Cinematographic Act has been discussed by the Apex Court in another decision in Raj Kapoor and ors v. State & ors[AIR 1980 SC 258] and it was held as follows:

"13. The next point urged before us by Shri Iyengar is that once a certificate under the Cinematograph Act is granted, the homage to the law of morals is paid and the further challenge under the Penal Code is barred. Jurisprudentially speaking, law, in the sense of command to do or not to do, must be a reflection of the community's cultural norms, not the State's regimentation of aesthetic expression or artistic creation. Here we will realise the superior jurisprudent value of dharma, which is a beautiful blend of the sustaining sense or morality, right conduct, society's enlightened consensus and the binding force of norms so woven as against positive law in the Austinian sense, with an awesome halo and barren autonomy around the legislated text is fruitful area for creative exploration. But morals made to measure by statute and court is a risky operation with portentous impact on fundamental freedoms, and in our constitutional order the root principle is liberty of expression and its reasonable control with the limits of 'public order, decency or morality'. Here, social dynamics guides legal dynamics in the province of 'policing' art forms.

16. I am not persuaded that once a certificate under the Cinematorgraphy Act is issued the Penal Code, pro tanto, will hang limp. The Court will examine the film and judge whether its public display, in the given time and clime, so breaches public morals or depraves basic decency as to offend the penal provisions. Statutory expressions are not petrified by time but must be up- dated by changing ethos even as popular ethics escalates. Surely, the satwa of society must rise progressively if mankind is to move towards its timeless destiny and this can be guaranteed only if the ultimate value vision is rooted in the unchanging basics, Truth-Goodness-Beauty, Satyam, Sivam, Sundaram. The relation between Reality and Relativity  must haunt the court's evaluation of obscenity, expressed in society's pervasive humanity, not law's penal prescriptions. Social scientists and spiritual scientists will broadly agree that man lives not alone by mystic, squints, ascetic chants and austere abnegation but by luscious love of Beauty, sensuous joy of companionship and moderate non-denial of normal demands of the flesh. Extremes and excesses boomerang although some crazy artists and film directors do practise Oscar Wilde's observation :