The Supreme Court on Thursday wondered how there could be a pre-screening committee for web series, films or other programmes that are directly released on online platforms.

An apex court bench of Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice Bela M. Trivedi was hearing a plea filed by Mirzapur resident Sujeet Kumar Singh for setting up a pre-screening committee for web series, films and other programmes that are directly released on online platforms.

“How can there be a pre-screening committee for web series? There is a particular legislation. Unless you say OTT (over-the-top) is also a part of it... you must say that existing legislation must apply to OTT. Various questions will arise because transmission occurs from other countries,” the bench said while directing the petitioner to withdraw the plea.

“…Post-exhibition redressal mechanism is different. Your petition has to be more detailed. File a better one.”

‘Provocative’ dress deleted

Bangalore: Kerala High Court on Thursday expunged a district court’s reference to the “provocative” dress of a sexual harassment survivor, saying a woman’s clothes are no licence for a man to outrage her modesty.

The high court granted anticipatory bail to Civic Chandran, a post-Marxist writer and social activist accused of molesting a writer during a stroll at the Nandi beach in Kozhikode after a writers’ meet on February 8, 2020.

Justice Kauser Edappagath on Thursday expunged Kozhikode sessions judge S. Krishna Kumar’s observation, saying: “The dressing of a victim cannot be construed as a legal ground to absolve an accused from the charge of outraging the modesty of a woman. The right to wear any dress is a natural extension of personal freedom… Even if a woman wears a provocative dress, that cannot give a licence to a man to outrage her modesty.…”

KM Rakesh