The judiciary is one of the pillars of democracy and it is a basic right of a human to be able to file a complaint against another person in case they find their behaviour inappropriate and want legal intervention. However, this right comes with a responsibility. The police complaints have to be thought through. You cannot just go and file a report against someone because you are offended by their personal choice that has nothing to do with anyone. The instances below put this in context.
1. Most recently, an FIR was filed against Ranveer Singh for “hurting sentiments of women” by posing nude for Paper magazine. I use this tweet everywhere as a response to that.
Ranveer can hurt my sentiments any time he likes.
— Sonia Faleiro (@soniafaleiro) July 27, 2022
2. Back in 2012, an FIR was lodged against Shah Rukh Khan, Gauri Khan, Karan Johar, and the leads of the movie Student of the Year for depicting the deity Radha in an inappropriate manner in one of the songs. Pretty easy to guess which one.
3. In 2015, Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh, and Arjun Kapoor were named in an FIR, along with many others for being a part of a public roast and using obscene language. For context, Deepika was not even a part of the show, she was merely an audience member.
4. A formal police complaint was filed against Kareena Kapoor by a Christian group because she wrote and published a book titled, “Pregnancy Bible”.
5. An Indore resident filed a police complaint against Vicky Kaushal for driving a bike for a scene that had the same number plate as his own vehicle. It was later found out that he got confused between numbers 1 and 4 due to a bolt.
6. An FIR was filed against Vidya Balan for posing in an ‘indecent’ way for the posters of her movie The Dirty Picture. Obviously, because a woman’s desire to pose however she wants, the context of the story, nothing matters. It was said she had caused “inconvenience to women”.
7. Farhan Akhtar, among others, was named in an FIR for producing Mirzapur, a show that, according to the complainant, allegedly hurt religious sentiments. However, they could not produce any proof for the same and the High Court ruled that it was the complainant’s sentiments alone that were hurt and quashed the FIR.
8. In a very infamous case, an FIR was filed against Sanjay Leela Bhansali for ‘disrupting communal harmony’ with his directorial venture Padmavat. A lot of hue and cry ensued before the High Court quashed the complaint, having found not one scene in the movie that was offensive.
The problem with these complaints is also that they waste the time of an already overburdened system. This means that the people waiting in line for justice, the ones with actual problems, have to wait longer. Hence, it is crucial for one to introspect a little before taking drastic actions.
