The Supreme Court on Tuesday observed that courts are not meant to engage in moral policing, as it set aside the ₹10 lakh costs imposed on musician Vishal Dadlani and political commentator Tehseen Poonawalla for tweets they posted in 2016 criticising a Jain monk.

A Bench of Justices AS Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan passed the ruling on an appeal filed by Poonawalla challenging a 2019 judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Although the High Court had quashed criminal proceedings against Dadlani and Poonawalla, it directed both to pay hefty costs, reasoning that their comments on social media mocked a religious figure and were made for publicity.

“It would be appropriate to impose the costs of ₹10 lakh each... so that in future they may not mock at any head of a religious sect, just to gain publicity on social media like Twitter,” the High Court had said.

The Supreme Court, however, came down strongly on this line of reasoning.

“No notice is served. What kind of order is passed? Court should not go on moral policing. This is not function of the court at all,” the Bench orally observed during the hearing.

In its judgment, the top court stated that the High Court, having concluded that no criminal offence was made out, should not have gone on to advise the petitioners or draw moral comparisons.

“The function of the court is not to do moral policing... After finding that absolutely no offence is made out, the High Court ought not to exercise advisory jurisdiction by telling the appellant that the contribution made by the priest was much more than what the appellant and the co-accused have contributed,” the order stated.

The case stemmed from tweets made in 2016 by Dadlani and Poonawalla criticising Jain monk Tarun Sagar (now deceased), who had addressed the Haryana Legislative Assembly unclothed, as per Digambara Jain tradition. Dadlani expressed his objection to the presence of religion in the legislature, while Poonawalla raised concerns over societal double standards regarding nudity and religious practices.

Following public backlash, Dadlani issued an apology and met the monk personally to express regret. The monk accepted the apology, noting that the comments had come from a place of ignorance about Jain customs.

Despite this, a third party (not affiliated with the Jain community) filed a criminal complaint under provisions relating to promoting enmity between religious groups and outraging religious sentiments.

While the High Court quashed the case in 2019, it still imposed financial penalties. The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned that aspect, stating that once it was clear that no offence was made out, the imposition of costs was unwarranted.

“Perhaps the High Court was swayed by the fact that the appellant and the other accused made criticism of a priest of a particular religion,” the Supreme Court noted, emphasizing that such considerations should not influence judicial orders