In an important judgment, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against poetic licence stretching the right to freedom of expression to cast revered figures like Mahatma Gandhi as a character in a fictional work and attributing obscene words to him.
A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and P C Pant upheld the prosecution launched against Devidas Ramachandra Tuljapurkar, editor of a magazine 'Bulletin' meant for private circulation among members of the All India Bank Association Union, for the poem 'Gandhi Mala Bhetala' (I met Gandhi). The poem, written by Vasant Dattatreya Gurjar, was published in the July-August 1994 issue of the magazine. However, it discharged the printer and publisher as they had tendered apologies.
The judgment, authored by Justice Misra, dealt exhaustively with the issue of obscenity, referred to works of famous authors and poets across the world, extracted passages from 40-odd books on Mahatma Gandhi written by Indians and foreigners and tested poetic licence on the touchstone of 'contemporary community standards'.