A tightrope walk for the judiciary

THE Supreme Court’s handling of the Ranveer Allahbadia case has offered a glimpse of the tightrope the judiciary walks — between moral indignation and constitutional propriety. The interim relief granted to the influencer came after a tough hearing, where moral outrage took centre stage. The court’s decision to protect Allahbadia’s personal liberty was correct. Yet, the manner in which the case proceeded will lead to a chilling effect on free speech.

Allahbadia, a prominent social media figure, is facing multiple FIRs for his remarks on the show India’s Got Latent. The remarks, though intended to be funny, have led to a nationwide furore. An outcry from media houses and politicians has only added fuel to the fire. But as his counsel, Abhinav Chandrachud, rightly argued, the legal question was not whether Allahbadia’s language was distasteful — everyone, including his own lawyer, admitted that — it was whether it amounted to a criminal offence under Indian law.

The court, however, seemed in no mood to consider such fine distinctions. Throughout the hearing, it expressed visible disgust, calling the language ‘dirty’, ‘perverted’ and a ‘vomit’ from Allahbadia’s mind. At one point, the judge asked Chandrachud, “Are you defending this kind of language?” The question, though rhetorical, pointed to a fundamental misunderstanding of a defence lawyer’s role: Not to endorse, but to ensure that even the most reviled person receives fair treatment under the law.

The Supreme Court is not a custodian of morality. Its primary duty is to uphold constitutional rights, including free speech and personal liberty. Protection of free speech is not necessary for popular speech. Constitutional protection is invoked only by unpleasant, unpopular speech that gets prosecuted.

Chandrachud, in an effort to bring the focus back to legal principles, cited the Apoorva Arora judgment, which held that profanity alone does not amount to obscenity. The test, the court had ruled, was whether the speech appealed to prurient interests and crossed the line to become criminal obscenity.

But the court appeared unmoved: “If this is not obscenity, then what is obscenity?” it asked. Courts do not operate in a moral vacuum, but neither should they allow their moral disgust to cloud legal reasoning. By asking if the Arora case provided a “licence to say whatever you want,” the court betrayed an unwillingness to separate protection of free speech from its personal sense of decency.

This exchange reminds me of what Justice Potter Stewart of the US Supreme Court wrote in his threshold test for obscenity in Jacobellis vs Ohio (1964). Explaining why the material at issue in the case was not obscene, Stewart wrote: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [‘hard-core pornography’], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” Taking a cue from this reasoning, stand-up comedians went on to joke that obscenity was whatever aroused a judge. Indian comedians would be well advised not to say that obscenity is whatever angers a judge.

The most disturbing aspect of the hearing was the court’s near-dismissal of the death threats against Allahbadia. When Chandrachud mentioned that his client was receiving threats, Justice Surya Kant remarked, “If you can try to attain cheap publicity by saying these kind of things, there might be others also who might want to get cheap publicity by making threats.”

Regardless of how offensive Allahbadia’s words were, death threats are not, and should never be, viewed as a predictable consequence — let alone a deserved one. The court’s repeated references to the shame Allahbadia had brought upon his parents bordered on moralistic grandstanding. “What embarrassment he has caused to [his] parents!” the judge exclaimed, as though the court’s role was to act as a collective moral guardian.

This paternalistic narrative, while perhaps reflective of Indian cultural norms, has no place in constitutional adjudication. Courts are not moral rehabilitation centres. Whether Allahbadia had embarrassed his family was irrelevant to the question of whether he had committed a crime. The conflation of social disapproval with legal culpability is a dangerous line for any court to cross.

Ultimately, the Bench issued a notice and sought a reply from the respondents, granting Allahbadia interim relief. This was, in the end, the right decision. The court recognised, however begrudgingly, that despite the offensive nature of the speech, the law demands a higher threshold to criminalise it.

The controversy surrounding India’s Got Latent and the nature of the show — offering restricted access to paid adult subscribers — raised an important point about context. The court seemed to be aware that the clip that caused the outrage was leaked out of context, but this awareness played little role in the hearing. It should have. Context matters deeply in free speech cases, and courts must guard against mob-driven moral panic.

The Allahbadia case is a reminder of the precarious balance courts must maintain. Judges are human. They feel disgust, anger and moral revulsion like anyone else. But their job is not to act on those feelings — it is to uphold the law dispassionately, especially when public opinion demands otherwise.

In granting interim relief, the apex court ultimately did what it was constitutionally bound to do — protect personal liberty. But the manner in which it did so sends a mixed signal: The judiciary will protect you, but only after shaming you, only after making it clear that your rights are being respected begrudgingly, and only after establishing its moral superiority over you.

This is not how constitutional courts should function. The Supreme Court exists to defend the unpopular, the offensive and even the perverted — because that is the essence of free speech in a democracy. One hopes that as this case proceeds, the court will remember that its role is not to cleanse society of vulgarity but to ensure that the law, not morality, remains its guiding principle.