New Delhi: A public interest litigation in the Supreme Court on Thursday raised a newsworthy, and pertinent, question: Should daily newspapers with sexually explicit material be given an A’ rating for carrying content that in a film would see the Censor Board restrict it to adult viewing only?
The apex court evidently concurred that it was a question that needed an expeditious answer. A three-judge bench, comprising of Chief Justice R C Lahoti, Justice G P Mathur and Justice P K Balasubramanyan, that heard the petition issued notices to the Centre, Press Council of India, PTI, UNI and leading dailies The Times of India and Hindustan Times.
With the advent of commercialism in the news industry and cut-throat competition among newspapers, the PIL said, dailies now publish titillating material in the form of explicit photographs, articles on pornography, sex education (often more about sex than education) dirty SMS jokes and write-ups on soft-porn movies.
The Times of India and Hindustan Times are virtually vying with each other to give maximum material for titillation in their locally circulated supplements Delhi Times and HT City purportedly to cater to the needs of youngsters, much to discomfort of elderly people in families, the PIL said. These two papers, under a special campaign, have enrolled school children as their subscribers through their school principals, it noted.
While supporting the right to freedom of speech and expression enjoyed by the media, the PIL filed by Ajay Goswami pleaded that rules and regulations be framed to shield minors from obscenity in the press. "The Centre and the PCI have failed to frame any rules and regulations on this aspect," the PIL said, seeking a direction for the Centre to appoint an expert committee to look into the problem of unwanted exposure to sexually explicit material to minors.
Since the government is signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it needs to protect the minors from such exposure of sexual material, the petition said.
