Obscenity - Indian Laws - General

Concept of obscenity Black s Law Dictionary that defines obscenity as follows:- Obscene, adj. (16c) - Extremely offensive under contemporary community standards of morality and decency; grossly repugnant to the generally accepted notions of what is appropriate. Under the Supreme Court s three- part test, material is legally obscene - and therefore not protected under the First Amendment - if, taken as a whole, the material (1) appeals to the prurient interest in sex, as determined by the average person applying contemporary community standards; (2) portrays sexual conduct, as specifically defined by the applicable state law, in a patently offensive way; and (3) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Miller v. Callifornia, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607 (1973). If there be no abstract definition, ... should not the word obscene be allowed to indicate the present critical point in the compromise between candor and shame at which the community may have arrived here and now? United States V Kennerley, 209 F. 119, 121 (S.D.N.Y.1913) (per Hand.J.) In Kamla Kant Singh Vs. Chairman/ManagingDirector, Bennetta Colman and Company Ltd. and Ors .[ (1987) 2 AWC 1451], wherein the High Court dealt with the meaning of the word obscenity . The delineation is as follows:- 15. The word obscenity has been explained in Jowitts Dictionary of English Law as follows: An article is deemed to be obscene, if its effect, or where the article comprises two or more distinct items, the effect of any one of its items if taken as a whole, is to tend to deprave and corrupt persons, who are likely having regard to all the relevant circumstances to read, to see or hear matters contained or embodied in it. (See R. v. Claytone and Hasley, (1963) 1 QB 163, R. v. Anderson, (1972) 1 QB 304) . Obscenity and depravity are not confined to sex. (See John Calder Publications v. Powell, (1965) 1 QB 509.) 16. According to Black s Law Dictionary obscenity means character or quality of being obscene, conduct, tending to corrupt the public merely by its indecency or lewdness. According to Webster s New International Dictionary, word obscene means disgusting to the senses, usually because of some filthy grotesque or unnatural quality, grossly repugnant to the generally accepted notions of what is appropriate. In Public Prosecutor v. A.D. Sabapathy [AIR 1958 Mad. 210], has opined that the word obscene must be given its ordinary and literal meaning, that is, repulsive , filthy , loathsome , indecent and lewd . The learned senior counsel has also referred to the judgment of Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Beaver [(1905), 9 O.L.R. 418], wherein Maclaren, J.A., has defined obscene as follows:- The word obscene was originally used to describe anything disgusting, repulsive, filthy or foul. The use of the word is now said to be somewhat archaic or poetic; and it is ordinarily restricted to something offensive to modesty or decency, or expressing or suggesting unchaste or lustful ideas, or being impure, indecent, or lewd. DEVIDAS RAMACHANDRA TULJAPURKAR VERSUS STATE OF MAHARASHTRA ORS- 2015 (5) TMI 1137 - SUPREME COURT