SC seeks Samay Raina, social media influencers’ presence for ‘ridiculing’ person with disability

The Supreme Court on Monday sought the presence of five social media influencers, including India's Got Latent host Samay Raina, on a plea of an NGO which alleged that they ridiculed persons with the rare disorder spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) on their show.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh asked the Mumbai commissioner of police to serve notice to the five influencers to ensure their presence in Court, failing which coercive action may be taken.

The bench also sought the assistance of attorney-general R. Venkataramani on the PIL of the NGO called Cure SMA Foundation of India for direction on regulating social media content concerning persons with disabilities and rare disorders.

The bench termed the influencers ridiculing such people as “damaging” and “demoralising” and said some serious remedial and punitive action was needed to avoid such incidents in future.

“This is very, very damaging and demoralising. There are statutes which try to bring these people into the mainstream, and with one incident, the entire effort goes. You should think of some remedial and punitive action within the law,” the bench told senior advocate Aprajita Singh, appearing for the NGO.

Observing that the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression is not absolute, the bench said no one could be allowed to demean anybody under the garb of the right and mulled framing guidelines on social media content concerning people with disabilities and rare disorders.

The NGO had referred to the deficiencies in the existing legal framework and urged the bench to formulate guidelines on online content.