Anmol Jain

Judicial Paternalism and Free Speech in India

The Indian Supreme Court has recently decided two cases pertaining to the speech acts of two different individuals—a podcaster and a legislator of the Legislative Council of the State of Bihar. In both cases, the Court chose to reprimand the individuals for their ‘indecent’ and ‘unparliamentary conduct’ and also sanctioned punishments upon them, without any a priori determination of whether their speech acts, in any manner, violated the limits of the right to free speech as guaranteed under the Indian Constitution. The reprimand and the sanction, I argue, emerged from the Court’s false belief that it is tasked to school the citizens on the appropriate and correct ways of using their speech rights.

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