SHYAM NARAYAN CHOUKSEY Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In the days of yore it was vocally pronounced with immense emphasis that a drum beat may travel to a maximum limit of four miles but the utterances made by one man, through men, is capable of reaching people who are thousand miles away. The medium of man's expression has no limitation. In the modern world the media has irrefragably earned the status of inevitable and indispensable fourth pillar. Freedom of speech and expression has gained immense significance and its utility, by no stretch of imagination, can ever be marginalised and its importance be reduced but, an unavoidable and significant one, there are certain limitations which are imposed by law within the permissible, reasonable or rational, acceptable and non-arbitrary limits. Cinema as a medium of expression and as a mode of entertainment has reached an enviable status in the scientific world. The Indian cinema has a different conception from its inception inasmuch as myths, historical events, poignant novels, moving stories, autobiographical novels, biographical sketches along with melodious songs have dominated the silver screen. Some recall with fondness the historical beginning when Dada Saheb Phalke introduced the Indian audience to the modern medium in an innovative method and that is when the silent era of the moviedom came into being in India. Needless to state, at that point of time, the pioneer of Indian cinema could never have harboured the thought in the farthest quarters of his mind that a day would come when cinema, a versatile audio-visual medium would lead to a controversy when many a question would arise to be adjudicated in a public interest litigation being preferred by a retired officer of the State Government as pro bono publico to agitate the grievance relating to the use of the National Anthem in the depiction of the narrative - a motion picture. At this juncture, we may state that in the case at hand it has become imperative and incumbent on our part to deeply penetrate and to appreciate applying the roving logicality of the quintessential facet of perceptual shift pertaining to commercial use and dramatisation of the National Anthem of our country Bharat, 'Bharti Yatra Santatih' in the film namely, "KABHI KHUSHI KABHI GUM".

(2.) Cinema has been described in Chamber's Encyclopedia as an abbreviation of cinematograph or kinematograph. It has also been mentioned therein that broadcasting excepted it is the youngest of the arts, having developed from rudimentary beginnings to a high level of aesthetic and technical achievement within the first half of the 20th century and becoming one of the most popular and cheap forms of entertainment. The cinema is regarded as an art and initially it was trick photography. With the passage of time certain story films were contrived and there was no sound. In the third decade 'Talkies' arrived. In the year 1926 introduction of sound transformation and both, technical and economical form of film production took place and slowly colour photography was introduced and factors in size and quality of the image changed.

(3.) We have devoted some space to the concept of cinema as the whole controversy, in the case at hand relates to picturisation and projection of an important scene in the celluloid. The portrayal in its entirety is neither surrealistic nor in the silhouette background. The whole thing is direct, like an arrow, piercingly moving, having the requisite impact. We have to deal with such a situation in the bedrock and anvil of existing law.