Recently, the Supreme Court drew a clear line between offensive speech and criminal obscenity, holding that merely calling someone “bastard” does not, by itself, invite penal action unless it carries a sexual undertone. The clarification sharpens the legal threshold for obscenity, signalling that crude or abusive language, however unpleasant, does not automatically cross into criminal territory.
The issue arose in the context of determining whether certain expressions used during a heated exchange could be prosecuted under Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code. The prosecution treated the use of the word “bastard” as obscene, while the defence contended that the expression, though offensive, lacked any sexual connotation required to meet the legal threshold of obscenity. The case thus brought into focus the long-standing tension between socially unacceptable language and what the law actually criminalises.
The Division Bench of Justice P S Narasimha and Justice Manoj Misra held that obscenity must be assessed through the lens of contemporary standards and its capacity to arouse sexual interest. The Court observed that “mere use of the word ‘bastard’, by itself, is not sufficient to arouse prurient interest of a person.” It further noted that profanity, even if offensive, does not automatically qualify as obscene unless it has a sexual undertone.
Concluding that the essential ingredients of obscenity were absent, the Court ruled that such usage would not constitute an offence under Section 294 of the IPC.
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