On Thursday, Delhi High Court ordered the removal of a 20 year old song from Honey Singh and Badshah, titled ‘Vol 1,’ who had released it under the group name of ‘Mafia Mundeer.’
The Court was hearing a plea by Hindu Shakti Dal who filed the plea to demand deletion of all the videos and audios from all social media platforms including Spotify, Youtube, and Google. In their plea, Hindu Shakti Dal contended that Honey Singh had sang a few verses from the controversial song at a recently held concert in Mumbai.
After hearing the said lyrics in the chamber, The Court stated that they found the lyrics dehumanising towards women. Justice Purushaindra Kaurav, who was hearing the case, termed the lyrics of the song as ‘grossly vulgar, obscene and derogatory towards women,’ adding ‘no civil society can permit such content to remain on digital platforms.' The Court even refused to write the song title in official order, citing its level of indecency.
While passing the removal orders, the Court also directed the two singers and anyone claiming rights to the song or remixes or alternate versions to immediately take down the URLs containing the song from any social media handles, music platforms, and sharing platforms.
The Court also refused to grant it any lenience under the guise of freedom of speech or artistic expression, and said that such disregard of decency in society cannot be permitted under any circumstances to monetise on digital platforms.
The matter will next be heard on May 07.
