Married couple Kissing is not obscenity, says court

New Delhi, April 23 Taking serious note of the growing trend of moral policing, the Delhi High Court Wednesday asked the Delhi police commissioner to hold an inquiry against a police official who had charged a newly married couple with obscenity when they kissed in public.

In February, the court had stayed criminal proceedings against the couple who were charged under Section 294 (obscenity) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Police had said assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Vidyadhar Singh of the Dwarka police station had on Sep 4 last year found the couple “sitting in an objectionable position near a Metro pillar and kissing each other due to which passers-by were feeling bad”.

The couple told police they were married but they were taken to the police station, arrested and granted bail.

Justice S. Muralidhar asked the police commissioner to probe the matter and inquire why the ASI misbehaved with the couple.

The court in its earlier order had made it clear that, “The FIR (first information report) doesn’t make a case for the offence under Section 294 read with Section 34 (common intention). It is inconceivable how, even if one were to take what is stated in the FIR to be true, an expression of love by a young married couple would attract offence of obscenity and trigger the coercive process of law.”

The couple denied kissing each other in public and said they were just clicking their photographs with a mobile phone.

According to the couple, they were going to meet their lawyer, who had helped them tie the knot much against the wishes of both their parents a fortnight before the unhappy run-in with the police on Sep 18, 2008

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