Offensive Speech or Protected Expression? Rethinking Constitutional Limits on Online Comedy Through the India’s Got Latent Controversy

The Digital Era today has brought significant changes in the lives of people. The power of social media platforms have become supreme and words suddenly hold greater value because of public scrutiny.This transformation has created difficult questions concerning the constitutional limits of offensive, vulgar and provocative expression.This article revolves around the controversy of Youtube’s comedy show India’s Got Latent that became a national debate due to remarks made by some personalities that were labelled as explicit and obscene.As a result,multiple criminal complaints under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita,2023 and Information Technology Act,2000 by the state were filed.The proceedings resulted in intervention of the Supreme court and consequently quashing of all the complaints.This article analyzes from a constitutional point of view,the essence of Article 19(1)(a) and Article 19(2) along with landmark Supreme court’s judgments on online content.It reflects two sides of a coin:on one hand,it argues that mere offensive words shall not be equated with criminal terms such as ‘Obscene’ or ‘Vulgar’and on the other it reflects how expression shall be regulated in terms of online comedy through a strict regulatory framework promoting peace and harmony in the state.