Comic Vir Das gives his verdict on 3 unusual Public Interest Litigations
We’re a people that loves attention. For most of us Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame is enough but for some they like to milk it for all they can. We’re talking about all those people who file PILs randomly just so they can get some mileage out of it (incidentally, you can actually get pulled up for presenting an irrelevant PIL and wasting the Court’s time).
While the acronym actually expands into Public Interest Litigation, we’ve decided to call it Publicity Interest Litigation. We presented three such PILs to comedian and television host Vir Das and asked him to give us his verdict.
Fruits of marriage
A lawyer in Patna has filed a PIL against actor Aishwarya Rai’s “marriage” to a banana plant saying it is demeaning to women to do something like that based on superstition.
Vir’s Verdict: Not guilty. Ash has a right to marry whom and what she pleases. If it means she is going bananas, then so be it. When you look that good, you could walk down the aisle to marry a ‘karela’ in Westminister Abbey and it would still be alright.
Skintillating
Shilpa Shetty got a summons from the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court in response to a PIL filed against her. The PIL states that certain pictures of her in the newspaper ‘Tamil Murasu’ are obscene.
Vir’s Verdict: Not guilty. A heroine showing some skin is considered bad, but overweight men with chest hair that could put Big Foot to shame in yellow love-handle hugging ‘baniyans’ is all the rage!
Holy Liz
A gentleman in Rajasthan has filed a PIL against Liz Hurley and Arun Nayar for getting married with Hindu rites. The PIL states it was done with an intention to demean Indian rites and rituals, and hurt religious sentiments because they had already gotten married the Christian way.
Vir’s Verdict: Guilty. If you are going to get married once in the UK and once in India, at least behave like an NRI and marry different people.
(As told to Sandhya Menon)
