The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday dismissed a petition seeking a ban on an animated movie, ‘David’, as misconceived observing that unnecessary censorship suffocated a society and stifled its creativity and growth.
The petitioner, Abdul Razzak, had submitted in the petition that the animated motion picture was said to be based on the life of a prophet of the same name as recognised by the respective texts held by the followers of three monotheistic faiths — Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
He submitted that the portrayal of a prophet’s life in a theatrical manner was inconsistent with the Islamic teachings. He submitted that if the movie was allowed to be released, it would deeply hurt religious sentiments of the Muslims in the country and requested the high court to direct the government to impose a ban on its release in the country.
A division bench of the high court comprising Justice Adnanul Karim Memon and Justice Yousuf Ali Sayeed observed after hearing the petition that its content was similar to another petition in which a ban was sought on similar grounds in respect of a motion picture titled Joyland that was portraying a relationship between married man and a transgender woman and that petition was dismissed by the court with certain observations.
The judges observed that the court was of the view that after a cinematic work had passed through the censor authorities that had examined its content and cleared it for release after an appropriate certification, an individual could not be allowed to trump that decision through a court proceedings based on his conception of morality.
The bench observed that the SHC had pointed out in the judgment that it was not the function of the court under the Article 199 to make a moral judgment so as to curtail the freedom of speech and expression of a filmmaker as safeguarded under the Article 19 of the Constitution.
The SHC observed that the high court under the Article 199 ought to be that of fully safeguarding the fundamental rights by giving as expansive an interpretation to the Article 19 as possible, and in the event of a restriction being imposed by the board or any other authority that may be competent in that regard, testing the reasonableness of that restriction stringently, so as to ensure that the same was “reasonable” in the strictest conceivable sense.
The bench observed that in the absence of any restriction imposed by the quarter concerned, whether that be the censor board or the provincial government, it was not the job of the court to morally police the public by making a determination of what should or should not be viewed by them and to take on the function of itself devising and imposing a restriction.
The high court observed that unnecessary censorship suffocated a society and stifles its creativity and growth. Referring to the earlier court order, the judges pointed out that the courts were equally sanguine that our society was not so weak as to crumble as a consequence of watching something, and dismissed the petition.
