Joke on disables: Supreme Court asks Samay Raina, other comedians to display apology on programmes

Apart from Raina, the other comedians are Vipul Goyal, Balraj Paramjit Singh Ghai, Sonali Thakkar, and Nishant Jagdish Tanwar.

A top court bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a petition filed by Cure SMA Foundation of India flagging jokes ridiculing people with disabilities.

The petition was clubbed with the case linked to the massive India's Got Latent controversy popular podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia was charged with.

The top court has asked the comedians to display their apologies on their podcasts and shows.

The court has also asked the central government to frame social media guidelines to restrict jokes offending various communities including disabled, women, and children.

The government said it will take some time to frame the guidelines for the comedians and influencers.

"There cannot be a complete gag," said Attorney General R Venkataramani, who appeared for the Centre, as reported by NDTV.

In response, Justice Kant said the guidelines should not be a reaction to this one incident but "broad-based".

"Future challenges have to be kept in mind," said Justice Kant as reported by the broadcaster.

India's Got Latent controversy

The show India's Got Latent was embroiled in a massive controversy in February this year after podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia made crass remarks related to parents and sex on one episode of the show.

The remark had not only offended the audience but also prompted people to object to various other controversial jokes which were passed in other episodes of the show.

The Supreme Court had made it clear that it was not in favour of imposing a regulatory system that could lead to censorship but maintained that content creators could not have unchecked freedom.