K.RAJANARAYANAN ALIAS KI.RA Vs. P.KATHIRESAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Violence is the most extreme threat to freedom of expression. Many have paid with their lives for exercising this basic human right. Timothy Garton Ash in his seminal work "Free Speech" would call it as "the assassin's veto". When Ayatollah Khomeini issued fatwa to kill Salman Rushdie, V.S.Naipaul remarked that assassination is an extreme form of literary criticism. Long back, an American free speech scholar Harry Kalven Jr. coined the term "heckler's veto" to describe the way a speaker can be silenced in a public meeting. To these can be added "the prosecutor's veto". It is setting the criminal law in motion to target those legitimately exercising their right of speech and expression.

(2.) A recent instance is the registration of FIR in Muzaffarpur District against 49 celebrities, including Ramchandra Guha, Aparna Sen, Mani Ratnam. They had written an open letter to the Prime Minister of India expressing concern over certain developments. A Muzaffarpur based lawyer Sudhir Kumar Ojha filed a case against them in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate. Based on the direction given by the court, an FIR came to be registered for sedition, public nuisance, hurting religious feelings and insulting with an intent to provoke breach of peace. This caused considerable consternation to the enlightened citizenry. It is now reported that the FIR has since been closed. But, the complainant has stated that he intends to file a protest petition.

(3.) One can recall a spate of private complaints filed in various courts across the country against the renowned artist Maqbool Fida Husain. Some of his paintings were charged as vulgar and obscene. Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul sitting in Delhi High Court (as His Lordship then was) quashed the criminal proceedings after authoritatively laying down what the law of obscenity is. This eloquent decision (Maqbool Fida Husain vs. Raj Kumar Pandey, (2008) CriLJ 4107) concludes on this evocative note - "A painter at 90 deserves to be in his home-painting his canvass."