Ironically, Ranveer Singh, who grabs eyeballs for his bold choice of clothes, is now in trouble for shedding them. The Mumbai Police has registered an FIR against the Bollywood actor for his nude pictures. What happens next?
We all have seen Bollywood star Ranveer Singh butt naked but not everyone is lusting. In fact, some sentiments have been “hurt”.
Days after the actor’s sizzling photoshoot went viral, he finds himself in legal trouble. On Monday, two applications were filed with Mumbai Police seeking the registration of a First Information Report (FIR) against Singh for “hurting sentiments of women” through his nude photographs, an official said. Now a case has been registered against him.
The complaint applications were submitted separately at the Chembur police station by an office-bearer of a non-profit, also based in the eastern Mumbai suburb, and a woman lawyer. The NGO office-bearer stated the actor has hurt the sentiments of women in general and insulted their modesty through his photographs, reports NDTV.
So what happens now? How much trouble is Singh really in? And what does the law say?
Let’s talk about the shoot
It is generally Ranveer Singh’s flamboyant clothes that are the talk of the town. But when he decided to shed them all, it broke the internet and now he seems to be in trouble.
Last week, Singh posed bare for Paper magazine’s cover and posted some pictures on his Instagram. In an interview with the magazine, the actor said he can be “naked in front of a thousand people”.
And it was far more than a thousand people and his 1.9 million Instagram followers who have seen him unclothed. In one photograph, Singh can be seen sprawled across a carpet wearing nothing; in the others, he is seen donning underwear, flaunting his toned body.
View this post on Instagram
The legal trouble
But nudity tends to make Indians uncomfortable. Now a complainant has said that Singh has “hurt sentiments of women” through his photoshoot and insulted their modesty.
The NGO bearer has demanded the registration of a case against the actor under the Information Technology Act and various sections of the Indian Penal Code. The application filed by the lawyer, a former journalist, also demanded a case against Singh on the charge of intent to outrage the modesty of women.
The law against obscenity
Obscenity is a crime in India and a punishable offence. Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) punishes obscene acts – even words – in a public place. However, to be considered a crime, obscenity must cause “annoyance to others”, which it seems to have in the case of Ranveer Singh.
If convicted under this law, a person can face up to three years in prison.
The internet and obscenity
Singh has not posed in public but instead has posted photographs on social media, which of course is a public forum. What does the law say then?
In the age of the internet, laws in the country have evolved. Sections 67 and 67A of the Information Technology Act prohibit obscene and sexually explicit material respectively.
According to Section 67, publishing material in the electronic form “which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest” or tends to “deprave and corrupt persons” shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment which may extend to three years and a fine of Rs 5 lakh. In case of a second conviction, the prison term may extend to five years and the fine to Rs 10 lakh.
Section 67A deals with the punishment of publishing material considered sexually explicit online. If convicted, the imprisonment may extend to five years with a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh.
Exceptions are made if the publication is justified for being good for the public on “the ground that such book, pamphlet, paper, writing, drawing, painting representation or figure is in the interest of science, literature, art or learning or other objects of general concern”, or it is used for “bona fide heritage or religious purposes”.
Any obscenity in electronic form can only be tried under the IT Act and not under IPC.
Defining obscenity
The words “obscene” and “obscenity” are not defined clearly under the law. Section 292 of the IPC and Section 67 of the IT Act only state that if the material is “lascivious” or appeals to “prurient interest
View this post on Instagram
” and tends to deprave and corrupt the persons who read, see or hear the matter will come under the ambit of obscenity. However, the law does not define “lascivious”, “prurient”, “deprave” and “corrupt”, leaving it up to the courts to make their interpretations.
In India, the Supreme Court in the Aveek Sarkar vs State of West Bengal case in 2014 held that “the question of obscenity must be seen in the context in which the photograph appears and the message it wants to convey”.
The case was related to a photograph of tennis player Boris Becker posing nude with his then-fianc?e Barbara Feltus, an actress, covering her breasts with his hand. A newspaper and magazine in India republished the photographs and a complaint was filed against it under Section 292 of the IPC and under Section 4 of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986, which prohibited the publication of indecent representations of women.
The top court hearing the case further clarified that the correct test to determine obscenity would be the American Community Standards Test, ie, Roth Test and not the British Hicklin Test thereby making it clear that in each case related to obscenity the material should be be “‘taken as a whole”. According to the Roth Test, obscenity has to be evaluated based on contemporary standards and the changing values of society. It basically means that what was obscene a few decades ago might not be considered obscene now.
The past cases
Of course, Ranveer Singh is not the first to have run into trouble for posing nude. In November 2020, model and actor Milind Soman was booked by the Goa Police for obscenity, days after he posted a photograph of himself running nude on a beach.
In the same month, model-actor Poonam Pandey and her husband Sam Bombay were arrested in Goa over a controversial photoshoot, a video of which went viral online. They were granted bail on a bond of Rs 20,000 each. The court said that content perceived obscene by some and artistic by others cannot be a ground to jail a person.
Protima Bedi, who was a model, stirred up a storm in 1974 when she ran naked on a Mumbai beach for a magazine photoshoot.With inputs from agencies
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.