INTRODUCTION
On 2 April 2026, the Delhi High Court passed an order unusual enough that the presiding judge, Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, refused to reproduce even the title of the offending song in the written record.[1] The track “Volume 1,” an early release of the Mafia Mundeer collective featuring YoYo Honey Singh and Badshah, was ordered to be taken down immediately from every digital platform, remixes and alternate versions included. After hearing the lyrics in chambers, the Court described the content as grossly vulgar, obscene and derogatory towards women, lacking any identifiable artistic or social value, and observed that no civilised society could permit such material to remain freely accessible online. The judge went further, remarking that this was one of those rare cases where the “conscience of the court was shocked to its core”.[2]
Far from being an isolated controversy, the order highlights a broader problem in Indian popular culture: the commercial production and mass circulation of music that objectifies women, romanticises harassment and normalises sexual violence. It also raises an important legal question: under what legal framework does such content attract civil or criminal liability, and is India’s existing legal regime adequate to address it?
FRAMING THE HARM: MORE THAN A MATTER OF TASTE
Before the law can be discussed, the harm must be understood, because the entire constitutional analysis turns on whether there is harm at all. The songs in question are not obscure underground tracks. They are streamed hundreds of millions of times, played at weddings, and absorbed by listeners of every age. When such songs reduce women to objects of male pleasure, they do not merely offend, rather they function as cultural scripts. Empirical work in social psychology suggests a link between exposure to sexually aggressive song lyrics and aggression-related thoughts and behaviour towards women.[3] The problem, in other words, is not aesthetic disagreement. It is tangible social harm directed at a constitutionally protected class of citizens.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK
The tension sits between Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and expression, and Article 19(2)[4], which permits reasonable restrictions in the interests of public order, decency and morality, among other grounds. Free expression is not absolute, but the threshold for restricting it is deliberately high. In S Rangarajan v P Jagjivan Ram[5], the Supreme Court held that speech may be restricted only where the anticipated danger is proximate and direct ~ not remote, conjectural or far-fetched. This is the standard any takedown of song lyrics must ultimately satisfy. At the same time, any attempt to regulate artistic expression raises legitimate concerns under Article 19(1)(a). Critics may argue that allowing courts or regulatory bodies to determine the acceptability of song lyrics risks subjective censorship and could have a chilling effect on creative expression. These concerns cannot be dismissed lightly and underscore the need for any restriction to remain narrowly tailored and confined to the grounds permitted under Article 19(2).
Whether commercially distributed misogynistic music meets that constitutional threshold is genuinely debatable. It is submitted, however, that where content demonstrably contributes to a culture of harassment and falls within the recognised grounds of decency or morality under Article 19(2), the connection is closer to a live wire than to a distant spark.
Article 51A(e) adds a distinctly Indian dimension.[6] It imposes a fundamental duty on every citizen to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women. Fundamental duties are not enforceable in the way fundamental rights are, but courts have repeatedly used them as interpretive tools — reading statutes expansively where the dignity of women is at stake. The dignity of women, on this reading, is not merely a policy aspiration. It is a constitutional value that informs how every other provision is construed.
THE STATUTORY ARSENAL
The Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986: The IRWA is the statute most directly on point. Section 2(c)[7] defines “indecent representation of women” as the depiction of the figure, form or body of a woman in a manner that is indecent, derogatory or denigrating, or likely to deprave, corrupt or injure public morality. Section 3 prohibits advertisements containing such representation; Section 4 extends the prohibition to the publication or sending by post of books, pamphlets and similar material. Section 6 prescribes imprisonment of up to two years and a fine on first conviction, with enhanced punishment for repeat offences. The Act’s central weakness is its vintage. Drafted for a world of hoardings and printed pamphlets, its language does not comfortably capture audio streaming or algorithmic distribution. Courts have stretched it, and the Information Technology Act has filled some of the gap, but a statute regulating representation of women that predates the internet is, by definition, behind the problem it seeks to regulate.
Obscenity Provisions: IPC, BNS and the IT Act: Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code[8] — now substantially carried into Section 296 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 — penalises anyone who, to the annoyance of others, sings, recites or utters any obscene song or words in or near a public place. This provision has direct history with Honey Singh. In 2013, Punjab Police registered an FIR against him under Section 294 over the notorious track “Main Hoon Balatkari,” and the Punjab and Haryana High Court declined to grant him relief, leaving it to the state government to devise checks and balances for screening vulgar and obscene songs.[9] That direction, tellingly, gathered dust for over a decade. For digital content, Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 penalises publication or transmission of obscene material in electronic form, and Section 67A covers sexually explicit material.[10] Section 69A empowers the government to direct intermediaries to block access to content. In the Hindu Shakti Dal matter, the Court’s directions ran along precisely these lines the Union Government and intermediaries were required to block access and remove all URLs hosting the song.[11]
Harassment Provisions: Provisions on outraging the modesty of a woman (Section 354 IPC) and sexual harassment (Section 354A IPC), and their successors in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, require that conduct be directed at a specific person.[12] A commercially distributed song will rarely satisfy that directional element. But a live public performance of such a song sung to an audience sits closer to the line.
THE 2026 ORDER: WHY IT MATTERS
Three features of the Hindu Shakti Dal order deserve emphasis.
- First, it shows a judiciary willing to act where the executive has not. The song circulated for nearly two decades before a petition filed by a private organisation, not a regulator finally brought it before the Court.
- Second, the enforcement design was unusually comprehensive: notices to the artists personally, and obligations on intermediaries to remove every URL, remix and alternate version, with the Court insisting that not even fragments of the lyrics should re-enter the public domain.
- Third, and most significantly, the Court’s language “ that no civilised society can tolerate such content” is a statement of normative principle. It treats the dignity of women as a floor below which expressive freedom cannot sink.
WHERE THE LAW STILL FALLS SHORT
For all this, the framework remains patchy. The IRWA needs formal amendment for the digital era; a two-year maximum sentence is no deterrent to an industry whose hit songs generate revenue in hundreds of crores. There is no statutory body with proactive authority over audio content on streaming platforms. And takedown orders are inherently leaky, content migrates to mirror sites and decentralised hosts faster than orders can follow it.
The deeper defect is structural: the law is reactive. Litigation begins only after a song has been distributed, monetised and culturally absorbed. By the time a court orders a takedown, the damage, to attitudes, and arguably to women, is already done. What is missing is a preventive mechanism: a statutory obligation on intermediaries to screen commercial music against standards defined under a modernised IRWA before distribution, administered by a specialised content standards body. The Press Council model, adapted for digital audio, offers one possible template, though any such body would itself have to survive Article 19 scrutiny.
JUDICIAL INTERVENTION AS CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY
A fair objection runs as follows: courts should not be arbiters of artistic merit, and judges deciding which songs survive is a dangerous precedent. The objection has force in the abstract. On these facts, it fails.
Where the legislature has not acted, the executive has been passive, and demonstrable harm is being inflicted on a constitutionally protected class, judicial intervention is not overreach it is the discharge of a constitutional obligation. Vishaka v State of Rajasthan[13] is the controlling analogy: faced with legislative silence on workplace sexual harassment, the Supreme Court framed binding guidelines rather than wait for Parliament. The Delhi High Court’s 2026 order is a contemporary application of the same principle to digital content. The gap-filling role is not new; only the medium is.
CONCLUSION
The law is catching up. Catching up, however, is not keeping pace. The Hindu Shakti Dal order signals that derogatory audio content will now be treated as a serious legal question rather than a matter of cultural sensitivity, but the durable solution is legislative: a modernised IRWA, meaningful penalties, platform accountability, and a preventive screening architecture that does not wait twenty years for a petition.
Popular music is not produced in a vacuum, and it does not stay in one. It shapes perception, normalises behaviour, and travels directly into the minds of millions of listeners. The law can no longer afford to pretend otherwise.
Author(s) Name: Avni Ojha (The National Law Institute University, Bhopal)
References:
[1] Hindu Shakti Dal v Union of India 2026 LiveLaw (Del) 334 (Delhi High Court, 2 April 2026).
[2] ibid
[3] Peter Fischer and Tobias Greitemeyer, ‘Music and Aggression: The Impact of Sexual-Aggressive Song Lyrics on Aggression-Related Thoughts, Emotions, and Behaviour Toward the Same and the Opposite Sex’ (2006) 32 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 1165
[4] Constitution of India 1950, arts 19(1)(a) and 19(2).
[5] S Rangarajan v P Jagjivan Ram (1989) 2 SCC 574.
[6] Constitution of India 1950, art 51A(e)
[7] Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act 1986, s 2(c).
[8] Indian Penal Code 1860, s 294; Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, s 296.
[9] Jaspreet Singh v State of Punjab (Punjab and Haryana High Court, 2013) relating to proceedings against Honey Singh under s 294 IPC
[10] Information Technology Act 2000, ss 67 and 67A.
[11] Hindu Shakti Dal v Union of India (n 1).
[12] Indian Penal Code 1860, ss 354 and 354A; Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, ss 74 and 75.
[13] Vishaka v State of Rajasthan AIR 1997 SC 3011, (1997) 6 SCC 241.
