Plea Seeks Action Against Prakash Raj For Commercial That `Degrades' Women
A teaser advertise ment for a jewellery product in which actor Prakash Ra says daughters of marriagea ble age are a source of tension for their fathers, has landed the actor in trouble with a school teacher filing a PIL in the Madras high court saying the commercial utterly de grades womanhood.
The advertisement shows Prakash Raj introducing his daughter as “my first ten sion“, and then urging people to send a text message with the word `TENSION' to a par ticular phone number if they too had “marriageable age tension“.
The first bench of the court, comprising Chief Jus tice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T S Sivagnanam, however, refused to entertain the petition filed by S Safiath of Villivakkam, saying she has shown only Prakash Raj as a respondent and had not put promoters of the product on notice before approaching the court.
“Before approaching the court, she has not served any notice on the people propaga ting the advertisement to desist from such practice, nor has she approached the broadcasting association with any grievance. Interestingly , the petition has been filed impleading only the cine actor as a party, with the commissioner of police and the commissioner of corporation impleaded as second and third respondents. The focus seems to be on the first respondent only because he happens to be a cine actor,“ the judges said.
In her petition, Safiath said there were advertisements in newspapers and televisions, besides hoardings along roads, with a tagline “If a girl of marriage girl is there, it is tension, right?“ Taking exception to this, the PIL said the commercial is disrespectful of girl children.Introducing a daughter as “my first tension“, instead of showing her as a daughter or girl is demeaning and disrespectful, it said, adding Prakash Raj has some responsibility in his personal capacity and that by endorsing some company in that manner he had degraded women. “Being born as a girl is not her offence, and for that she cannot be ill-treated by being referred to as tension,“ the PIL said, adding that for marketing a product and boosting one's business, no one has any right to treat women with disrespect.
Referring to them as a source of tension is nothing but challenging their fundamental right to live with dignity in a peaceful environment, it said.
The petitioner wanted the court to direct the Chennai police commissioner to remove the hoardings and ban broadcast of the commercial on TV . She also wanted the court to direct the commissioner to initiate penal action against Prakash Raj and the company responsible for treating women in a disrespectful manner.
