Oops, they did it again! Govt takes Comedy Central off air fearing it will corrupt morals

New Delhi: On 25 November, the Delhi High Court upheld the Centre’s decision to stop transmission of entertainment channel Comedy Central for 10 days for airing shows having “obscene” and “vulgar” dialogues besides being derogatory to women. The government also observed that the content of the said shows may influence the future generation.

The government sought the ban on the channel for shows like Stand Up Club and Popcorn,  which they said had the potential to “deprave, corrupt and injure the public morality and morals”.

A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, while dismissing the appeal of the channel to overturn the ban, also imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 payable to the Centre.

NDTV quotes the court saying, “The appellant is engaged in a business/enterprise which owing to its mass appeal/base has the potential of influencing the thought, behaviour and conduct of the citizens, especially the future citizens of this country,” the court had said dismissing the plea of Viacom 18, which owns the channel.”

Comedy Central had approached the division bench against a single judge order upholding the Centre’s decision to stop its transmission for 10 days.

“We have carefully perused the contents of the two programmes to which objection has been taken and having gone through the same, are of the opinion that the matter requires no interference.

“The appellant is engaged in a business/enterprise which owing to its mass appeal/base has the potential of influencing the thought, behavior and conduct of the citizens, especially the future citizens of this country,” the court said.

“Merely because the government has done away with the system of checks, does not entitle such entrepreneurs to commence an enterprise in a half-baked manner,” the court said.

This isn’t the first time that the channel has run into trouble with the government. In May 2013, the channel had been banned for three days for similar reasons.

Understandably, social media has exploded in outrage against the government’s decision and the court upholding the ban. Many wondered if the country has lost its sense of humour and also derided the government for trying to parent the country’s television watching habits. Following are some tweets expressing displeasure over the ban:

Proud to have a culture that's amazing, strong, been around for 1000s of years; and yet, sensitive enough to be damaged by Comedy Central.

— Ramesh Srivats (@rameshsrivats) November 25, 2014

Ministry of Info & Broadcasting thinks shows on ComedyCentral "deprave, corrupt and injure the public morality". Are we that fragile?

— Siddharth Singh (@siddharth3) November 25, 2014

Disclaimer: Comedy Central is aired in India in association with Viacom18, which is a part of Network18 that also owns Firstpost.

With inputs from PTI