The Karnataka High Court has quashed criminal proceedings against seven students and two faculty members of Jain (Deemed-to-be) University’s Centre for Management Studies (CMS), over a skit they performed during a college festival, which was allegedly derogatory towards BR Ambedkar and Dalit communities. The case, based on a complaint filed by the Social Welfare Department, accused the participants of promoting caste discrimination and violating laws related to hate speech and atrocities against Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities.
Justice SR Krishna Kumar, in his order, ruled that the charges under sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups), 149 (unlawful assembly), and 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), as well as sections 3(1)(r)(s) and (v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, did not hold up under legal scrutiny. The court said the necessary elements constituting these offences were absent, particularly as the skit did not appear to have been performed with intent to insult or harm any specific community.
The case stemmed from an incident during a Jain University Youth Fest event, held in Bengaluru on February 4, 2023. As part of a segment titled ‘Mad-Ads’, a group of students performed a skit that included a storyline featuring a man from a lowered caste background attempting to date a dominant caste woman. The performance contained controversial dialogues and wordplay, including an alteration of Ambedkar’s name to “Beer Ambedkar.” Following public outrage, Bengaluru police arrested nine individuals on February 13, 2023, including the seven students who participated in the skit, CMS Director Dinesh Nilkant Borker, and Assistant Professor Prateek Thodkar P.
The petitioners defended the skit as a piece of satire that aimed to critique the caste-based reservation system and highlight social inequalities, rather than demean any community. They argued that the intention was to encourage debate on the prevailing class structure and promote equality. The reservation system, notably, was implemented in India as a means of addressing historical inequalities and discrimination faced by certain groups, particularly those from oppressed castes.
The court, upon reviewing the complaint, the First Information Report (FIR), and a transcript of the skit, said it found no direct evidence to support the alleged offences. It concluded that the skit was performed for mere entertainment, with no intention to harm or humiliate any community or race, nor to make any reference to a particular religion or religious belief.
The judgement also noted that the complaint had not been filed by a person from an SC/ST community, but by an official from the Social Welfare Department. Furthermore, the court ruled that the skit fell within the ambit of artistic and satirical expression, which is protected under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution.