Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Tolerance level has gone down, High Court rues

 The tolerance level of the people has gone down, the Bombay High Court  on April 20 remarked while dealing with a petition filed by an author who is facing criminal case for using the term 'Ghati'.

Marzban Shroff, the author of story-collection Breathless In Bombay, is facing a criminal case for using
the word 'Ghati' in one of the stories in the book. The word is used in Mumbai for referring to Maharashtrians, in a slightly derogatory sense.However, Shroff, who is seeking quashing of the criminal
complaint, maintains that he never meant to insult any community, and the word has been used in the fictional
dialogue.

Justice V M Kanade, himself a Maharashtrian, seemed to agree with the author. "Ghati is common slang word. For every community there are such words," the judge observed."There are many such words for Parsis, but they don't mind it. The unfortunate part is that our tolerance level has gone down," Justice Kanade said.

Criminal complaint against Shroff was filed by one Vijay Murdas, an activist. Earlier, police had informed the High Court that they had closed the case.

Full report here PTI

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