The Rajasthan High Court on Monday dismissed a petition against the Centre’s order allowing condom advertisements to be aired only after 10 pm, PTI reported. The High Court observed that such “obscene advertisements” were only aimed at promoting condoms as instruments of pleasure, instead of for contraceptive use, PTI reported.
Prateek Kasliwal, the counsel for the non-governmental organisation Global Alliance for Human Rights, claimed that the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s order will affect the AIDS awareness mission in the country.
The High Court called the petition a “proxy litigation”, adding that the NGO was promoting the cause of someone else. “This country has grown from 45 crore population post-independence to over 1.3 billion as of now,” the bench of Justices Gopal Krishan Vyas and GR Moolchandani, PTI reported. “Where were you and the condom campaign to prevent population explosion?”
The court further said: “You are not concerned with use of condoms as contraceptive but for preventing sexually transmitted diseases. We fail to understand what’s wrong if the obscene advertisements in the name of condoms are regulated and allowed only between 10 pm to 6 am.”
The High Court said the advertisements were so obscene that it cannot be watched with family. It said the ministry was well within its purview to regulate the telecast of advertisement of condoms.
In December, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had issued a notification banning the airing of condom advertisements between 6 am and 10 pm to “avoid exposure” of children to such material.
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