WB artistes flay ban on loudspeakers

Protesting against the order, the Association of Professional Performing Singers (APPS) said: “We don’t believe that music can be source of noise pollution.”

However, the Association’s secretary Utpalendu Chowdhury said, “Before appealing to the court, the APPS would study various aspects of the order.”Several artistes who felt the order would take away their professional right, have decided to launch an agitation, saying the order if implemented, would hit them hard economically.

Evidently, the order which hasn’t spared the age-old Bengali theatre in villages, came as a shock to a large section of the theatre artistes.

A division bench of Calcutta High Court comprising Justice Bhagabati Prasad Banerjee and S B Ray on Monday banned the use of the microphones during open air musical performances after 9 pm in the evening.

Incidentally, the court ruling happens to be a part of earlier orders which strictly banned the abuse of microphones during religious functions, public rallies directing that use of loudspeakers should be within the prescribed limit.

The present order held that any singer, or musician found using microphones in any open air concert from 9 pm to 6 am would be punished for violating the court order and “for contributing to noise pollution.”

The court order came in the wake of quite a few cases of violations of the earlier HC order banning high-decibel sound-producing crackers during Diwali in elected pockets of the city, particularly Salt Lake area.