The court pointed out that the fundamental freedom under Art. 19(1) (a) can be reasonably restricted only for the purposes mentioned in Art. 19(2) and the restriction must be justified on the basis of necessity and not the quirks of convenience and expediency. The court made it clear that open criticism of Government policies and operations is not a ground for restricting expression. The court opined that intolerance is as much dangerous to democracy as to the person himself.
The Court allowed the appeals, set aside the judgment of the High Court and dismissed the writ petitions.
B. Other Landmark Cases
The Indian judiciary, through its various judgments, has contributed immensely to build up the jurisprudence in this respect. Some of those important judgments related to feature films, telefilms and television serials are discussed below.
In K.A. Abbas v. Union of India[34], the constitutionality of censorship under the 1952 Act along with the Rules under it was challenged. But the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality within the ambit of Article 19(2) and added that films have to be treated separately from other forms of art and expression because a motion picture is “able to stir up emotions more deeply than any other product of art”. However, at the same time it cautioned that it should be “in the interests of society”
Another incident came up was regarding a serial Tamas which depicted the Hindu-Muslim tensions before the partition of India. An appeal was preferred before the Supreme Court from the judgment of the Bombay High Court in the case of Ramesh S/o Chotalal Dalal v. Union of India and Others[35], to restrain the screening of the serial as it was violative of Articles 21 and 25 of the Constitution and Section 5B of the Act. The Supreme Court affirmed the High Court decision to dismiss the petition. Commenting on the reaction of the average men, the Court held that the average person would learn from the mistakes of the past and perhaps not commit those mistakes again. It concurred with the High Court that illiterates are not devoid of common sense and awareness is the first step towards realization.
In Odyssey Communications Pvt. Ltd. vs. Lokvidayan Sanghatana[36], an appeal was