Mere uttering of abusive words doesn’t amount to obscenity: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Mere utterance of abusive, humiliating or defamatory words by itself do not amount to an offence of obscene act under Section 294(b) IPC and it has to be proved that it was done to cause annoyance to others, the SC held while quashing criminal proceedings against some people under the provision for using unparliamentary language in a public place.
A bench of Justices S Abdul Nazeer and J B Pardiwala said, “To prove the offence. . . there must be further proof to establish that it was to the annoyance of others, which is lacking in the case. No one has spoken about the obscene words, that they felt annoyed and in the absence of legal evidence to show that the words uttered by the appellants accused annoyed others, it cannot be said that the ingredients of the offence under Section 294 (b) of IPC is made out. ”
The bench examined the complaint filed by a lady and said that the test of obscenity under Section 294(b) of the IPC is whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences.
It also said courts should adopt a judicious approach while taking cognisance as a person against whom no offence is disclosed cannot be put to any harassment by the issue of process. “Issuance of process must be preceded by an application of judicial mind to the material before the court to determine if there is ground for proceedings. ”