The Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High court has dismissed a petition of television producer Ekta Kapoor seeking quashing of a case registered against her for alleged obscenity in a web series.
On Wednesday, Justice Shailendra Shukla observed that the facts of the case were not such that the court might exercise its extraordinary powers under Section 482 of Cr.P.C for quashing the FIR at least in respect of sections 67 and 67-A of the Information Technology (IT) Act and 294 of Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The complainant had alleged an episode of the series ‘XXX uncensored’ was obscene and caused annoyance to him, hurt his religious feelings and dishonoured the Army. Yet the court noted section 298 (Uttering, words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person) of the IPC and the State Emblem Act were not found to have been breached.
The case was registered at the Annapurna police station, Indore, under sections 294 (Obscene acts and songs), 298 and 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the India Penal Code and sections 67( Punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) and 67-A (Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form) of the I.T. Act and Section 3 of the State Emblem Act.
The scene of physical intimacy depicted acts of copulation which were although not graphic in nature but were simulated which had been termed to be “obscene,” the court observed.
“As per the complainant, depiction of such simulated sexual activity between these two persons who do not even know each other indulging in raw animal passion without involvement of emotions exposes the intent of the director/producer to arouse similar feelings in the minds of the audience,” the order noted.
Whereas, the petitioner submitted the series was a drama/comedy/parody, which explored schemes of romance and human sexuality in different modern day scenarios. It was not connected with the Army or religion.
