SC dismisses activist Rehana Fathima’s bail plea in child video case
A Supreme Court bench on Friday dismissed Kerala activist Rehana Fathima’s plea seeking anticipatory bail in the case related to a controversial video with her children. After the Kerala High Court refused her pre-arrest bail, Rehana’s counsel had moved the top court challenging the high court order late July.
Rehana was booked under sections of the POCSO Act (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) after she uploaded a video of her children painting on her semi-naked body.
On Friday, a bench led by Justice Arun Mishra rejected the plea, stating that prima facie, POCSO charges apply to the accused activist in the case. The activist’s counsel Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayan had argued that section 13 of POCSO (using a child in any media, for the purpose of sexual gratification) will not apply to the activist as the “children are fully clothed in the video.”
The activist had also argued that her intent was to normalise the female body and “to spread a message to not allow ‘distorted ideas of sexualisation' in the minds of children”. She had also added that she allowed her children to paint on her body ‘like a canvas’ and only a ‘pervert’ can sexualise such an act.
Dismissing the plea, Justice Mishra expressed bafflement at the ‘kind of case’ brought before the court.
“Why do you do all this? You might be an activist but why do this? What kind of nonsense is this? How can you make use of children for this? What kind of a culture will the children perceive?” Justice Arun Mishra, who was heading the bench, was quoted as saying.
Sankaranarayan: Pornography provisions have been applied to me. Have attached the Youtube link also to her video.
— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) August 7, 2020
Justice Mishra: Not interested in that. This kind of a case. How can you make use of children for this? What kind of a culture will the children percieve ?
The judge added that the video will count as obscenity and that it will “leave the society in a very bad taste.”
"It is obscenity clearly. And you are spreading it. It will leave the society in a very bad taste," justice Arun Mishra.
— Murali Krishnan (@legaljournalist) August 7, 2020
Sr. Adv Gopal Sankaranarayanan says she has been charged with child pornography and not obscenity.
"The children are fully clothed," says Sankaranarayanan
Earlier the Kerala High Court had rejected her anticipatory bail plea, with the judge stating that ‘he is not in a position to say that no offence under POCSO Act and other sections is attracted in this case’.
The High Court also said that this was not ‘a fit case where the petitioner could be released on bail’ and added that it looked like the ‘children were used for sexual gratification’ in an ‘obscene’ manner.
Rehana had challenged this order by moving the Supreme court and in her plea argued that the children ‘were painting in an expressionless manner’ and hence impossible to conclude that they were ‘used for sexual gratification’.