SC refuses to censor Kangana Ranaut's social media posts

This comes as a Supreme Court lawyer had sought directions from the court to censor all future social media posts by the actor as one of them had "justified the innocent killing of Sikhs".

Hearing the case, Justice DY Chandrachud said the petitioner himself has also filed a complaint and is free to seek other available legal remedies.

The plea referred to an Instagram post of Ranaut which inferred that "Sikh farmers were Khalistani terrorists, upholds the genocide of 1984, means that Sikhs should be treated as a lower race like unwanted mosquitoes and they need a Guru like Mrs Indira Gandhi when the eternal Guru of the Sikhs is Guru Granth Sahib jee."

Petitioner Chanderjit Singh Chanderpal told the court that he was at the farmers' protests and "there was nothing Khalistani about it".

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Bela M Trivedi were hearing the case.

The plea stated: "These kinds of statements develop a sense of racial discrimination, hate based on different faiths and could lead to a lot of heated arguments on social media and have to potency of even riots, provocation and have all ingredients of the offences that these statements commit, having an effect on the daily like of the petitioner/ his thinking/ his faith/ his confidence in the system and such things just cannot be ignored."

The court has advised the petitioner not to read out Ranaut's statements. "The more you publicise her statements the more you serve her cause. You are doing a disservice to your own cause," Justice Chandrachud said.

The plea also sought the court's directions to transfer all pending FIRs registered against Ranaut across India to the Khar Police Station in Mumbai.

It requested that all charge sheets in these cases to be submitted in six months and trials be completed in two years.

To these, the court said that clubbing of FIRs can be done only if the accused comes before the court with that request and that it cannot be done for a third party.