The Supreme Court has made it clear that foul language, however offensive or distasteful, cannot automatically be branded as “obscene” in the eyes of criminal law.
A bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi held that mere swear words, profanities or vulgar expressions do not, by themselves, attract the offence under Section 294(b) of the Indian Penal Code. For the provision to apply, the prosecution must establish the legally recognised elements of obscenity, along with the required public-place context and annoyance caused to others.
The ruling came in the appeal of a 70-year-old Tamil Nadu man whose conviction arose from a land dispute. While the Supreme Court overturned his convictions under Sections 294(b) and 506(ii) IPC, it upheld the finding of guilt under Section 326 IPC for causing grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon.
Taking into account his age, health and the circumstances surrounding the dispute, the Court modified the punishment to imprisonment till the rising of the court and imposed a fine of ₹50,000.
The case originated from an altercation over land in August 2017. The appellant was accused of using vulgar language against the complainant and attacking him with a billhook, resulting in several injuries, including a fracture to the nasal bone.
The trial court had convicted him under various provisions of the IPC and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The Madras High Court subsequently acquitted him of the offences under the SC/ST Act but maintained the convictions under Sections 294(b), 326 and 506(ii) IPC.
The Supreme Court, however, found that the conviction for obscenity could not stand.
Obscenity is more than offensive language
Explaining the scope of Section 294 IPC, the bench said the prosecution must prove two key ingredients: that obscene words were uttered in or near a public place and that the utterance caused annoyance to others.
The Court stressed that the law does not treat every vulgar or abusive expression as obscene.
“Legally, obscenity is not synonymous with ‘vulgarity’, ‘abuse’ or ‘profanity’,” the bench observed.
It added that swear words and vulgar expletives, even when uncivil or distasteful, cannot automatically be equated with obscenity.
According to the Court, language must possess a lascivious character, appeal to prurient interests and have the tendency to deprave and corrupt susceptible minds before it can fall within the legal concept of obscenity.
Words may trigger disgust, shock or revulsion, the bench noted, but that alone does not make them obscene under criminal law.
The Court also found that the evidence did not establish that the alleged words had caused annoyance to others in a public place—an essential requirement for a conviction under Section 294(b) IPC.
Court revisits the law on obscenity
In reaching its conclusion, the bench examined a series of earlier decisions that have shaped the legal understanding of obscenity in India.
The Court referred to the Constitution Bench ruling in Ranjit D. Udeshi v. State of Maharashtra, which held that obscene material must have the tendency to deprave and corrupt susceptible minds.
It also considered Chandrakant Kalyandas Kakodkar v. State of Maharashtra, which recognised that standards of obscenity may change with the morality and social standards of the time.
In Aveek Sarkar v. State of West Bengal, the Supreme Court moved away from the older Hicklin test and adopted the community standards approach for determining obscenity.
The bench further relied on Samaresh Bose v. Amal Mitra, which drew a clear distinction between vulgarity and obscenity. Vulgar language may be offensive or disgusting, but it does not necessarily have the depraving effect required to constitute obscenity.
The Court also referred to later decisions, including S. Khushboo v. Kanniammal, Madhanagopal v. Lalitha, Apoorva Arora v. State (NCT of Delhi) and Sivakumar v. State, which have similarly held that abusive or profane language, without a lascivious or sexually depraving element, is not enough to attract the offence of obscenity.
Applying those principles, the Supreme Court held that the expressions allegedly used by the appellant, even if accepted as having been uttered, were at most abusive or vulgar. They did not satisfy the legal threshold required for an offence under Section 294(b) IPC.
The Court therefore set aside that conviction.
The conviction under Section 506(ii) IPC for criminal intimidation was also overturned. The Court ultimately retained the conviction for voluntarily causing grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon under Section 326 IPC, while substantially modifying the sentence in view of the appellant’s age and circumstances.