The Delhi High Court has issued notices to weeklies India Today and Outlook for publishing "obscene" articles and sex surveys in their recent editions. A division bench also issued notices to the information and broadcasting ministry and the Press Council of India (PCI) asking them to file their replies by December 7, the next date of hearing.
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by one Supriya Aggrawal through advocate Varun Goswami alleged that the magazines were "corrupting" the the mind of youngsters. Goswami sought direction to the government and PCI to formulate a comprehensive Act and rules thereunder to be followed by weeklies and other news magazines to check, regulate and curb the publication of sexually explicit, obscene, lewd and objectionable material. The bench comprised Justice Vijender Jain and Justice Rekha Sharma.
He urged the court to call upon the two magazines to show cause why they should not be given token punishment and why the government should not withdraw their registration for publishing such an obscene and sexually explicit material.
Goswami alleged that in an article on "Sex and Single Women" in India Today and "Women buy Men Sex: First Hand Encounters with Indian Gigolos and Nationalwide Survey on Forbidden Sex" in Outlook, the editors and correspondents of the two magazines have exceeded all limits of civility and responsibility towards the society.
Terming the stories published under the garb of survey as "indecent and cheap", the petitioner submitted that it cannot be allowed to be published like this. The petitioner, an academic, also urged the court to ask the two magazines to file details of the sale of this particular edition as well as advertisement revenue earned on this edition.
She also submitted that the government and the press council be directed to enact a law as well as guidelines for governing the content of materials published in magazines and newspapers so that such surveys did not appear again.
''Enquiries revealed that publication of pornographic, adult and sexually-explicit articles are prohibited in India and it has been so prohibited keeping in mind, the typical and traditional values and ethos of the Indian society,'' the petition said.
The court, however, observed that obscenity lied in the mind of the reader and that things had to be viewed in proper perspective.
