SC seeks comedian Samay Raina’s presence in court for ‘insensitive’ jokes about disabled persons

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to comedian Samay Raina and four others on a petition claiming that they had made insensitive jokes about persons with disabilities, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh asked the Mumbai Commissioner of Police to serve notice to all five of them and ensure their presence in court on the next date of the hearing. It added that coercive action would be taken if they failed to appear.

The notice was issued on a writ petition filed by a non-government organisation called Cure SMA Foundation, which raises awareness and provides support for patients with spinal muscular atrophy. The bench sought the assistance of Attorney General R Venkataramani in the matter, PTI reported.

Apart from Raina, the others summoned were Vipun Goyal, Balraj Paramjeet Singh Ghai, Sonali Thakkar aka Sonali Aditya Desai and Nishant Jagdish Tanwar, according to Live Law.

The NGO had initially brought the matter to light through an intervention application filed in another case related to sexually explicit remarks made by YouTuber and podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia during an episode of the show India’s Got Latent, hosted by Raina, in February.

The court had said that it intended to do something to regulate obscene content on YouTube and other social media. It had further asked the Union...

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