Reportedly, the supreme court has ordered one of India’s most senior lawyers to look into condom and other contraceptive packaging to decide whether the images on the covers are improper and should be banned.
According to the report in Yahoo, Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh will spend six weeks inspecting the sexy photographs on the packaging to determine whether they breach India’s tough obscenity laws.
“Do you have any plan to regulate such advertisements?” the Indian Express quoted a supreme court bench asking Singh who is the government’s third-ranked legal officer.
“You also have to tell us if such advertisements may constitute a penal offence,” said the bench.
Singh’s office confirmed to AFP that the court had issued the order on Tuesday but declined to comment further.
Traditionalists in India often register complaints with the police under the obscenity law, which carries a maximum punishment of two years in jail and five years for repeat offenders.
Even Bollywood actors are often slapped with such charges for their films that some see as a threat to the ‘culture of India’. Former porn star turned actor Sunny Leone was slammed with an obscenity charge in 2015 for her online films and photographs during her stint as porn star.
Even though some of these cases may seem silly, the police officials are obliged to register a case when complaints are made.
The supreme court’s decision came after condom manufacturers appealed against an earlier high court order banning lewd pictures from their packaging as they were obscene and disrespectful.
