JUDICIAL SENSITIVITY TO SENTIMENTS IS A SIGN OF REGRESSION

The judiciary in India is eroding free speech by policing its content

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Indian courts today are not defending free speech. They are managing it. And in this curious inversion of constitutional values, we are witnessing a quiet retreat from the principle that animated Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution: that speech, even provocative, offensive, or unsettling, is the citizen's shield against tyranny — not its tool.

Once envisioned as the counter-majoritarian bulwark of our democracy, the judiciary now increasingly resembles an arbiter of decorum, demanding apologies and deference in the name of civility, sensitivity, or national pride. But when courts focus on what was said rather than why the right to say it must be protected, the Republic is left vulnerable to a new tyranny: that of sentiment, outrage, and the lowest tolerance denominator.

Let us begin with a chillingly ordinary example: a social media post by a 24-year-old man criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi. after the ceasefire with Pakistan following Operation Sindoor in May 2025. Was this tasteless? Perhaps. But taste is not a constitutional metric. The Allahabad High Court thought otherwise. In rejecting the plea to quash the first information report (FIR), the Bench declared that “emotions cannot be permitted to overflow to an extent that constitutional authorities of the country are dragged into disrepute”. That is a remarkable formulation. It subtly inverts the constitutional design: the citizen is no longer the source of power holding the state to account, but a child to be reprimanded for speaking too freely.

A validation of outrage