Why is Ranveer Singh booked for posting nude photos? What does Indian law on obscenity say?

The complaint alleges that Singh has hurt the sentiments and modesty of women through his photographs. While Singh is not the first celeb to be booked under the obscenity laws in India, here’s what the laws say.

The laws on obscenity in India are poorly defined. While acts of obscenity or being obscene are punishable crimes, the various acts remain largely silent on what exactly constitutes being obscene. The interpretation of the legislation has been left to the judicial system.

 of the Indian Penal Code defines obscene objects as items that are lascivious or prurient, terms which are not defined either. The section also states that obscene objects or items may also have a depraving or corrupting effect on others. The section covers books, pamphlets, papers, writings, drawings, paintings, representations, figures or any other objects. Importing, selling, advertising, or receiving profits from any venture using these objects can result in a punishment of up to five years under the section.

Section 293 covers the distribution of the aforementioned obscene objects to individuals under the age of 20, which attracts a punishment of up to 7 years of jail term along with a fine of Rs 5,000.

Section 294 defines the punishment for obscene acts or songs that annoy others, still without defining obscenity itself, as imprisonment of up to three months, or with a fine, or both.

Section 509, which is not directly related to the obscenity laws in India but still has been included in the FIR against Singh, is related to outraging the modesty of women, the punishment for which can extend up to three years in prison.

Section 67A of the Information Technology Act pertains to the transmission of sexually explicit material in electronic form. While the term sexually explicit is used in the IT Act, it is still not defined outright. The punishment for publishing such material can result in imprisonment of up to five years and a fine which may extend to Rs 10 lakh.

Since the law doesn’t define what can be considered obscene, the courts have had to come up with their own interpretations of the same sections. The obscenity laws in India predate the independence of the country, and the Privy Council had relied upon English sensibilities of the time as well as the Hicklin’s test, which was later adopted by the Supreme Court in the landmark Ranjit Udeshi judgement.

The Hicklin test of obscenity determines “whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.’

The test determined whether an object was obscene or not using the standard of someone who was open to immoral influences, and subsequently likely to be corrupted or depraved by the obscene material. While the Hicklin’s test allowed a lot of objects to be considered obscene, the courts have narrowed their definition of obscenity in recent times.

In the landmark Aveek Sarkar case of 2014, the Supreme Court did away with the Hicklin test and instead adopted the American Roth Test. The test would judge the obscenity of an object by taking into consideration the standards of an average person and the contemporary community's thoughts.

Previous precedents in cases like the MF Husain judgement of 2008 and the Perumal Murugan judgement of 2016 also highlighted the interpretation of the Supreme Court that art that makes a section of society uncomfortable cannot be called obscene just because of its unpalatability.