Let’s learn to laugh, says Madras HC judge
The Hindu
Quashes FIR against man arrested for innocuous social media post
Perhaps it is time India amended its Constitution mandating that every citizen also has a ‘Duty to Laugh’, suggested Justice G.R. Swaminathan of the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court, while quashing a case against a man whose attempt at word play landed him in trouble with the State police.
Listing out the duties of every citizen under Article 51-A of the Constitution, the judge said, “To this, the hypothetical author would have added one more fundamental duty — the duty to laugh. The correlative right to be funny can be mined in Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution of India (the use of crypto vocabulary to be forgiven). Being funny is one thing and poking fun at another is different altogether.”
What prompted the judge to stress on learning to laugh, was a petition by Mathivanan of Madurai, an office bearer of the CPI (ML). On September 16, Mr Mathivanan went on a sightseeing trip to Sirumalai hills with his daughter and son-in-law. Later, he uploaded the photographs of the visit on Facebook, captioning them ‘Trip to Sirumalai for shooting practice’.