The Supreme Court expressed its inability to issue directions to regulate jokes about the Sikh community, observing Courts cannot “lay down moral guidelines” for citizens and doubting their enforceability if they were to do so. This is not only the community which has its share of jokes on it. Almost every community has jokes on it and even the regional biases too have at times such connotations that it had led to communal frenzies. A Bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and R Banumathi said Courts cannot pass any regulations asking people to behave in a “particular manner in public” and even if they do, “who will enforce them on the streets?” “We are clear on the issue that the Courts cannot lay down moral guidelines for citizens. We cannot issue guidelines to regulate individuals,” the Bench said. Here it makes imperative over the people to decide how to behave so that other members of the society are not hurt and must respect their individuality that is what makes a civilised society. Jokes apart such commercial dissemination of “insulting” jokes about Sikhs through public modes of communication, like Internet and SMS are not the sign of a healthy community which prophecies tolerance and co-leaving. The intention of such malicious campaign is to disturb the public fiber. The Bench also expressed difficulty to differentiate about good and bad jokes on the basis of which it can pass some orders. “Sikh is highly respected community but you are bringing it down by fighting litigation to ban jokes,” it said, adding that at best the issue fell within the domain of Parliament. It said an aggrieved individual has the legal remedy and there was no scope for issuing guidelines for common public to follow. Court can issue directions to curb the dissemination of such jokes but the key concern was the enforcement of such directives.
