Moral policing not function of courts: Supreme Court grants relief to Vishal Dadlani, Tehseen Poonawalla

A court's functions do not include moral policing, observed the Supreme Court on Tuesday while setting aside costs earlier imposed on musician Vishal Dadlani and political activist Tehseen Poonawalla over certain tweets they posted in 2016 mocking a Jain monk..A bench of Justices AS Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan passed the order on an appeal filed by Poonawalla against a Punjab and Haryana High Court ruling from 2019.By the 2019 judgment, the High Court ordered Poonawalla as well as Dadlani to pay heavy costs for their posts, even though the High Court concluded that no criminal offence was made out in the case."It would be appropriate to impose the costs of ₹10 lakh each...so that in future they may not mock at any head of a religious sect, just to gain publicity on social media like Twitter," the High Court had reasoned. .The Supreme Court today sharply criticised the High Court for adopting such a moralistic approach. "No notice is served. What kind of order is passed? Court should not go on moral policing. This is not function of the court at all," the Bench orally remarked. .The Court proceeded to set aside the High Court's decision to impose costs. "We are of the view that after finding that absolutely no offence is made out, High Court ought not to exercise advisory jurisdiction by telling the appellant that the contribution made by the priest was much more than what the appellant and the other co-accused have contributed...The function of the court is not to do moral policing," the top court's order said. .Dadlani and Poonawalla had been booked for the offences of promoting enmity between religious groups and outraging religious feelings after they posted tweets criticising Jain monk Tarun Sagar (now deceased), who delivered a speech in the Haryana Legislative Assembly in 2016.Dadlani took to Twitter the following day to criticise the monk’s appearance at the assembly and his speech. He also registered his objection to the presence of religion in governance.Poonawalla also put out similar critical tweets, and also queried why women are shamed when they are semi-nude, whereas monks are termed holy when they “walk nude."Following a public outcry, Dadlani eventually apologised for his tweets and also met the Jain monk personally to seek his forgiveness. He, however, maintained that religion and governance should remain separate. Sagar also expressed that he had forgiven both Dadlani and Poonawalla for their tweets, remarking that both persons had made the comments ignorant of the Jain lifestyle and ways. .Nevertheless, a non-Jain third party filed a criminal case against both Dadlani and Poonawalla..In 2019, the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the criminal case filed against them but imposed costs on them. Today, the Supreme Court held that once the High Court had concluded that no offence was committed by Poonawalla and Dadlani, "there was no question of imposing costs.""Perhaps High Court was swayed by the fact that the appellant and the other accused made criticism of a priest of a particular religion," the Supreme Court added, before eventually setting aside the High Court's directive to pay costs. .[Read Live Coverage].[Read Order]