The Supreme Court has ruled that abusive language, even the notoriously offensive “f” word reproduced verbatim in the judgment, does not become a criminal offence merely because it is vulgar or offensive, underlining that obscenity under criminal law requires a much higher threshold than profanity exchanged in anger.
Event Context
The judgment, delivered by a bench of justices Sanjay Karol and Vipul M Pancholi on Friday, is among the rare Supreme Court decisions to reproduce the commonly used English expletive in full while analysing whether abusive language exchanged during a quarrel amounted to criminal obscenity. The bench held that vulgarity and obscenity are distinct concepts in law as it examined whether its use during a heated altercation attracted criminal liability under Section 294(b) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The court used the case to draw a clear legal distinction between obscene speech, which is punishable, and vulgar or abusive speech, which may be offensive but is not necessarily criminal.
The bench partly allowed an appeal filed by Mani, who had been convicted by courts in Tamil Nadu following a violent altercation arising out of a long-standing land dispute with his relatives.
Team Analysis
The judgment cited previous decisions on obscenity, reiterating that the law does not criminalise every crude or offensive expression. “For an utterance to be considered obscene, it must be shown that it was lascivious, appealed to prurient interests and had the tendency to deprave and corrupt the minds of those who are exposed to it…Such words, howsoever abusive, unpalatable or uncivil, do not satisfy the requirement of Section 294(b),” it held.
The court noted that expressions using the “f” word or profanities with sexual connotations may be insulting, shocking or deeply offensive, that alone does not make them legally obscene.
Drawing upon dictionary meanings, the bench noted that “abusive” language is one that is “extremely rude and insulting”, while “vulgar” language is rude and likely to upset people, often by referring to sex or the human body in an unpleasant manner. However, words may be insulting or offensive “without necessarily being obscene in law”, it said.
The judgment reaffirmed earlier SC precedents holding that vulgarity and profanities do not per se amount to obscenity. Referring to the 2024 judgment in Apoorva Arora Vs State (NCT of Delhi), the bench observed that profane expressions may evoke anger, disgust or revulsion rather than sexual thoughts.
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According to the prosecution, the incident occurred when Mani confronted the complainant over a property dispute, allegedly hurling a string of sexually and misogynistic abuses before attacking him with a billhook, causing a fractured nasal bone and other injuries. While the court upheld the conviction for causing grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon under Section 326 IPC, it set aside his convictions for obscenity under Section 294(b) and criminal intimidation under Section 506(ii), holding that neither offence was made out on the evidence.
