‘Penal laws not for punishing people with unpopular views’

NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court has said, while ruling in the case of Tamil actress Khusboo, that criminal laws are not for punishing people having unpopular views and using penal laws for such a purpose would violate one’s fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression.

A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan gave this ruling Wednesday while quashing around two dozen criminal cases against actress Khushboo Sundar, lodged against her all over Tamil Nadu, for expressing radical views on premarital sex and live-in relations.

The copy of the judgement was released Thursday.

The three-judge bench, which included Justice Deepak Verma and Justice B.S. Chauhan, also reiterated that premarital sex and live-in relationships are not crimes.

“It is not the task of the criminal law to punish individual merely for expressing unpopular views. The threshold for placing reasonable restrictions on the ‘freedom of speech and expression’ is indeed a very high one and there should be a presumption in favour of the accused in such cases,” the bench said.

“While it is true that the mainstream view in our society is that sexual contact should take place only between marital partners, there is no statutory offence that takes place when adults willingly engage in sexual relations outside the marital setting with the exception of ‘adultery’ as defined under Section 497 IPC (Indian Penal Code),” the apex court said.

“It is only when the complainants produce materials that support a prima facie case for statutory offence that magistrates can proceed to take cognisance of the same. We must be mindful that the initiation of a criminal trial is a process which carries an implicit degree of coercion and it should not be triggered by false and frivolous complaints amounting to harassment and humiliation to the accused,” the bench added.

The court quashed cases against the Tamil actress saying that complaints against her were filed with a malafide intention by office bearers of a political party and “in order to prevent the abuse of the criminal law machinery” they had to be quashed.

“The actress’ statement was not obscene and did not harm the reputation of anybody,” said the bench, adding that her statement published in India Today magazine in September 2005 was a rather “general endorsement of pre-marital sex and her remarks are not directed at any individual.”

Despite Khushboo’s remarks triggering a controversy, the bench recommended that “a culture of open dialogue when it comes to societal attitudes on issues like pre-maritial sex and live-in relationship.”