Samay Raina, other influencers must appear personally in court: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to exempt Samay Raina and three other social media influencers from personal presence in the courtroom during future hearings on a PIL which has accused them of undermining the dignity of physically challenged persons by making insensitive comments in their online shows.

Raina and other influencers, Vipul Goyal, Balraj Paramjeet Singh Ghai, Sonali Thakkar aka Sonali Aditya Desai and Nishant Jagdish Tanwar, were present in the courtroom before a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi.

The bench exempted only Sonali Thakkar from personal presence but asked her to appear online during the next hearing. On the framing of guidelines for digital broadcasters, attorney general R Venkataramani told the court that it would take some time as all stakeholders need to be consulted.

The bench suggested to the AG not to pay heed to "lot of free advice and suggestions available in the market and internet" and attempt framing a sound legal principle that would curb such remarks. The bench had said while Parliament and courts attempt to assimilate these sections of people in the social mainstream, these kind of casual yet reprehensible remarks by influencers in social media platforms ridiculing physical disability derails the efforts and objectifies disability.The bench also asked News Broadcasters and Digital Association as well as Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation to file their responses to the PIL within four weeks.