Pornography content on OTT platforms, there should be some screening: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed displeasure on streaming of films on web platforms without any prior screening of the content and also cited some films having pornographic content8The observation was made by the top court during the hearing of a plea by Amazon Prime Video India head Aparna Purohit against Allahabad High Court order which declined to entertain her anticipatory bail in connection with the FIRs lodged against her over the web series TandavA bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan said There should be some screening of content on web platforms There is pornography in some filmsSolicitor General Tushar Mehta representing the Uttar Pradesh government said some programs have filthy abusesSenior advocate Mukul Rohatgi appearing for Purohit contended this as a matter of free speech and cited that his client is not the producer of the show instead an employee of the company which is streaming the web series TandavJustice Bhushan replied that a balance needs to be struck in such matters and reiterated there should be some screening by somebodyThe top court indicated that there should be a body like censor board which screens the filmsA counsel in the matter informed the top court that the government has recently notified OTT guidelines The top court scheduled the matter for further hearing on FridayIn January the top court refused to grant interim protection to Tandav crew from any coercive action and had asked them to move the concerned courts to seek bail in the matterPurohit has been accused of inappropriate depiction of Hindu deities Uttar Pradesh Police personnel and for adverse portrayal of a character in the role of prime minister in the web seriesOn February 25 the Allahabad High Court declined to grant her anticipatory bail in the matter The high court had observed Western filmmakers have refrained from ridiculing Lord Jesus or the Prophet but Hindi filmmakers have done this repeatedly and are still doing this most unabashedly with Hindu gods and goddessesOne Balbir Azad lodged an FIR on January 19 2021 at Rabupura police station of Greater NoidaAzad had alleged that the web series had deliberately denigrated Hindu gods and goddesses and depicted Uttar Pradesh and its police in poor lightSeveral other FIRs have also been lodged in states like Uttar Pradesh Madhya Pradesh Karnataka Maharashtra Bihar and Delhi against the web series Tandav a nineepisode political thriller starring Bollywood Alisters Saif Ali Khan Dimple Kapadia and Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub started streaming recently on AmazonThe top court on Friday saying will see the new OTT guidelines issued by the CentreThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever