The Supreme Court rejected the plea to ban the Malayalam novel Meesha. The petitioner alleged the book portrayed women and the temple priest in an offensive way. He added that the book insults the Brahmin priests and Hindu women going to temples.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra with Justice A. M. Khanwilkar and Justice D. Y. Chandrachud. The three bench judges dismissed the case and said that banning of books choked the free flow of ideas.
N. Radhakrishnan, a resident of Delhi filed a petition and accused the Kerala of inaction. He said, “Some political leaders of the State who are usually for banning even intellectual writings of Salman Rushdie or Taslima Nasreen and those who prevented them from attending even a literary festival, have been up in arms in support of the writer, only to trample upon the religious sentiments of majority of peace loving but religious Hindus.”
He also highlighted the offensive conversation between two characters and said the dialogue demeaned womanhood and treated a woman as a sex object.
Judge D. Y. Chandrachud said that it could not make a virtue of banning literary work. He further said, “You are giving undue importance to this kind of stuff. In the age of the internet, you are making this an issue. It is best forgotten.”
Meesha authored by S. Hareesh was published as a series in the Malayalam magazine Mathrubhumi.
