The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : High Court allows writ petition challenging order suspending screening of film

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 08, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

High Court allows writ petition challenging order suspending screening of film

Special Correspondent

Threats to freedom of artistic expression are on the rise... This is not healthy : Judge

CHENNAI: If a section of society threatens to express its views by unlawful means thereby curtailing the fundamental rights of citizens, the State owes its duty not to please those persons who threaten such breach of peace, but to protect those persons whose fundamental rights are threatened to be violated, the Madras High Court has observed.

Allowing the writ petition that challenged a police order suspending the screening of The Da Vinci Code for three months in Tamil Nadu, Justice Prabha Sridevan said: "Such threats to freedom of artistic expression are on the rise. We see such incidents all over the country. This is not healthy; this trend must be nipped in the bud."

In her 60-page order, the Judge further said: "The suspension of exhibition of the film is an assertion of power exercised by self-appointed arbiters of what can be exhibited and what cannot be exhibited, who may be officers of the State or members of the public representing a particular group."

The film raises an issue whether there can be a work of art or literature or a film which propounds "alternative assumptions" and whether the public have the right to decide whether to accept or reject such alternative interpretation, the Madras High Court has observed.

She, however, clarified that the case was not that the assumptions were true. "The issue is whether the petitioner's right to freedom of expression and, equally, a person's right to see the film can be curtailed by the State, ostensibly on the ground that a section of the people does not accept that the petitioners have such freedom of expression."

She further said, "The issue whether the State is bound to protect the person whose fundamental right is sought to be violated by people who threaten to breach the peace, or whether the State will mutely watch such threats. All these issues must be answered in favour of the petitioners."

Ruling that the police order was "void for contravention of fundamental rights," Justice Prabha Sridevan said that when courts had considered it their duty and responsibility to intervene when even the Central Board of Film Certification interferes with the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression, the duty and responsibility is heavier in this case where the film has got the Censor's approval, and yet the petitioners have been prevented from exhibiting the film by an order which has "no reasonable basis."

The Judge then dismissed the implead petitions of Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy and two others, on the ground that they were not necessary parties to the proceedings.

Dr. Swamy in a statement claimed "moral victory" following the judgment. He expressed the hope that the State Government would not appeal against the Single Judge's order.

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