‘Vulgar language’ open to children, needs to be taken seriously: Delhi HC comes down on TVF web show ‘College Romance’

The HC said, “…this Court draws the attention of the Ministry of Information and Technology to the situations which are fast emerging on a daily basis and to take steps for enforcing stricter application of its rules qua the intermediaries as notified in Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 and make any laws or rules as deemed appropriate in its wisdom, in light of the observations made in this judgment… A copy of this judgment be forwarded to the Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, and concerned officials of YouTube India”.

It then disposed of the plea.

“It is clarified that the direction to register FIR in the present case does not include a direction to arrest any of the accused/petitioner,” the HC said while upholding the order of the metropolitan magistrate for the registration of FIR under sections 67 and 67A of the IT Act.

According to the FIR, “vulgar and obscene language” had been used in Episode 5 of Season 1 of the show. It said the episode showcases indecent representation or obscene portrayal of girls or women in the worst form.

The additional chief metropolitan magistrate in September 2019 directed the registration of an FIR. However, the additional sessions judge in November 2020 subsequently modified ACMM’s order directing that the FIR be registered under Section 67A of the IT Act only.

Justice Sharma after watching a few episodes of the show found that the actors in the web series are not using the “civil language” used in our country. The HC added the entire content of the series would lead a common man to the conclusion that the language used in the web series is foul and profane which can affect and “corrupt impressionable minds”. “Therefore, on the basis of this finding it can be held that the content of the web series will certainly attract the criminality as envisaged under Section 67 of the Information Technology Act,” it said.

With respect to the tussle between freedom of speech and public decency/morality in the said episode, the HC said the language used in the episode and the level of obscenity cannot be even reproduced in the judgment. The court observed the male protagonist “uses words describing male and female genitalia and sexual act, thus by words, painting pictures of a sexually explicit act which brings it under the ambit of arousing prurient feelings by so doing”. The court said the male protagonist named Bagga in the show and the “bug of obscene…and bad language of Bagga cannot be allowed to pollute the language of people”.

The HC pulled up TVF Media Labs Pvt. Ltd which is streamed on platforms such as SonyLiv, YouTube, and the petitioner’s own platform TVF Play. It said “online content curator” and “intermediaries” are in clear violation of Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code), Rules 2021, as neither was there any classification nor any warning regarding the profanity of language or excessive use of expletives. “The web series was available to every age group. Therefore, this web series also stood covered under violation of the Rules of 2021,” the HC said.

The court also rejected the petitioners’ arguments that language or behaviour does not evoke lustful thoughts and opined that the use of “vulgar language” and “bad words in the public domain and in social media platforms” open to children of tender age needs to be taken “seriously”.

Observing that change is inevitable, the HC also said media cannot be allowed to legitimise offensive language, including swearing and profane words, in the garb of change of language with the passage of time. The HC added while “courts cannot do moral policing” but the language used in the series does not pass the test of “public decency”, as the majority of Indians would like to use civil language hence “individualism of choice of using such profane language full of expletives has to give way to the majoritism of people who want to speak and hear the civil language”.

On the argument that the language used was the ‘spoken Hindi language’ the HC said words used in the series are not the part of conventional and spoken Hindi language and the expletives with reference to male and female genitalia and words and sentences which are necessarily vulgar cannot be described as ‘spoken Hindi language’ either by the masses or the language used in universities and colleges by the country’s youth.