New Delhi: Mass-circulated national newspapers that write freely of sex in keeping with today's cosmopolitan India that no longer treats this three-letter word as taboo could end up getting classified in the same manner as films are.
A Public Interest Litigation has been filed in the Supreme Court, raising the point whether newspapers should be classified on the basis of sexually explicit material printed by them similar to films being categorised by the Censor Board for viewers.
The PIL, filed by Mr Ajay Goswami, says that with the advent of commercialism and the competition among newspapers to increase their circulation, "numerous attempts are being made to cater to prurient interest of the public at large."
According to him, "Newspapers are publishing titillating material in the form of SMS jokes, articles on pornography, sex education (which at times is more pornography than education), comments on porn magazines or movies in addition to semi-nude photographs." Mr Goswami has pleaded that there is an urgent need to protect minors from the bad influence of such newspapers.
The PIL was taken up for hearing on Thursday by the Supreme Court, and a bench comprising Chief Justice RC Lahoti, Justice GP Mathur and Justice PK Balasubramanyan has issued notices to the Centre,
Press Council of India, PTI, UNI, The Times of India and Hindustan Times.
While supporting the media's right to freedom of speech and expression, Mr Goswami has argued in his petition that there is an urgent need to frame rules and regulations to shield minors from the "pornographic literature" circulated by newspapers.
His petition says the "Union of India and the Press Council of India have failed to frame any rules and regulations on this aspect," and has sought a direction for framing of "appropriate rules and regulations".
In his petition, Mr Goswami has requested the court to direct the Union Government to constitute an experts' committee to look into the problem of "unwanted exposure of sexually explicit material."
According to him, it is the duty of the Government to protect minors from such exposure as it is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
"The compelling interest is to protect the physical and psychological well-being of minors from the influence of literature, which is not obscene from the adult point of view," his petition says.