Thiruvananthapuram: The Supreme Court today rejected the plea seeking a ban on the controversial Malayalam novel Meesha of S Hareesh. A division bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Mishra delivered the order pointing out that they cannot interrupt in the writer’s artistic freedom.
The court said a writer has the right to write things that divulge in his imagination. We must respect his work and creativity. Hence the writer's freedom cannot be interrupted. The culture of banning books in the name of controversies is not agreeable. One should not read only a part of the book. A book should be read entirely and evaluated.
A book can be considered for a ban only if there is something obscene as per section 292 in the Indian Penal Code. The SC bench had observed that there should not be a culture of banning books unless it depicted something obscene and improper.
Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra also noted that the controversial portion is merely a sarcastic dialogue between two characters. Banning a book will affect the flow of free ideas, said Dipak Mishra. The plaintiff wanted the book to go into the trash pointing two paragraphs of it, Justice D Y Chandrachud said.
The apex court's order came on a plea by Delhi resident N Radhakrishnan, who had sought to omit excerpts from the Malayalam novel Meesha, which was published in a weekly Malayalam magazine.
On August 1, DC books, a publishing house based in Kerala, published the novel and was made available at bookstores across Kerala. The Union government and State government had earlier opposed the petition arguing that the freedom of expression must be safeguarded.