Screen ban on smoking must, govt tells HC

OUR LEGAL CORRESPONDENT

 

The Centre is convinced that a ban on screen smoking is necessary to prevent millions of imitators spawning in real life.

"People get affected by what their stars do on screen in films or ads…. They would be encouraged to smoke if they see filmstars or sportspersons doing the same in a film or ad," the government yesterday told Delhi High Court.

"There have been many instances where people, particularly youths and children, have tried to imitate what they see on screen. In some cases, people have jumped from high buildings."

A three-judge bench is rehearing a plea, from filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and others, to squash the ban after an earlier two-judge bench arrived at a tie.

One of the two judges, Justice Mukul Mudgal, had said a blanket ban violated Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution that safeguards freedom of expression. Such a ban would proscribe the portrayal of an act that happens in real life, curbing artistic expression and creative freedom.

He cited the TV serials on the Mahabharat and the Ramayan which showed gambling, kidnapping and deceit, and said such depictions cannot be banned to promote a morally idealistic society.

"Imagine a movie where all is well and every character is moral and obeys the laws and is happy and content. Such a script, apart from being very boring, also necessarily has to be very short," he had said. But his fellow judge did not agree and the case was referred to the larger bench.

The ban, notified on May 31, 2004, was to take effect from August 2005 but was twice stalled amid protests from the information and broadcasting ministry and the film industry. It eventually took effect on January 1, 2006.

Bhatt had challenged the ban on the ground that it violated freedom of expression, and also argued that it applied only to advertisements and not to movies or any other creative form of expression.

He claimed the ban was in direct conflict with the Cinematography Act of 1952. The notification asked distributors and TV channels to blur smoking scenes, banned such scenes in new films and required old movies to run a scroll warning that smoking was injurious to health. The ban extended to foreign films.

However, under pressure from the I&B ministry, the health ministry reluctantly agreed not to insist on a complete ban on historical characters lighting up, and in cases where it was necessary to depict the ill effects of smoking and in live programming.

But the health ministry insisted: "If the script cannot do away with such a character, the producer needs to write on the screen that smoking is injurious to health."

 

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