Supreme Court: The Bench comprising of CJ Dipak Misra, AM Khanwilkar and Dr DY Chandrachud, JJ., refused the withdrawal of a PIL that sought deletion of portions of Malayalam novel “Meesha”.
The petitioner stated that the excerpts of the novel consisted of cast aspersions on the character of priests and girls which dressed up to visit the temples by terming the activity as exhibition of readiness to have sex.
Therefore, in regard to the matter, CJ Dipak Misra stated that “There should be some literary freedom.” The bench further added that “Let us not make a virtue of banning of books in the past to extend it to the present day.”
Hence, the bench while stating that the tendency of taking out a passage from a book and seeking its ban must stop asked the Kerala government and daily to file responses along with the English translations of the portions that are offending in their opinion in the novel ‘Meesha’.
[Source: The Times of India]
