Don't whine, don't watch Jolly LLB if it offends you, SC tells lawyers

Defeated once in court but still determined to protect the "dignity"
of their profession, a group of lawyers from Meerut knocked on the
doors of the Supreme Court on Friday to stop the release of Jolly LLB.
Only to be told by the court that Jolly was only a film that need not
be taken to heart.

Trailers of the film — which released on Friday — show Jagdish Tyagi
aka Jolly LLB (Arshad Warsi), a struggling lawyer from Meerut, get a
rap from a judge (Saurabh Shukla) for misspelling prosecution as
prostitution. Lawyers from the UP town found it offensive and
contemptuous.

The Supreme Court, however, showed it was not willing to lose its
sense of humour.

"What is your problem with the dialogues? In our courts also, we get
several petitions with spelling and other mistakes. Appeals are spelt
as apples, section 171 as section 17, and similar such mistakes. These
things do happen in courts," a bench of Justices R M Lodha and Madan B
Lokur said.

The lawyers, who claimed they were graduates of Meerut Law College,
Chaudhary Charan Singh University, had approached the apex court
against Delhi High Court's refusal to stay the release of the film,
which they said was defamatory to the legal fraternity.

The SC regretted the lawyers' "unnecessary" grumbling after their
counsel conceded that Jagdish Tyagi aka Jolly LLB was not a real
person. "Then what are you complaining about? It is only a fictitious
character, based on a fictitious story. This is shocking," the bench
said.

Justice Lodha, who spent 13 years as a judge of Bombay High Court,
said: "These things happen in movies. They show Bombay High Court's
door and gate and then show something else happening inside. These are
all fictitious things."

When the petitioners' counsel attempted to draw the court's attention
to allegedly defamatory dialogues in the film, Justice Lodha recalled
Shakespeare — 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers' in
Measure for Measure.

"We are not using those words here, but you don't have to bother about
everything," he said. It is for the Censor Board to consider the
language of a film, and not our job," Justice Lodha said.

The court advised the lawyers not to watch the film or take their
families to the theatre if they found the dialogues offensive. "If the
movie is useless in your opinion, don't watch it at all. You know you
will not enjoy it, so don't go. You are giving undue importance to the
issue. Let those go to theatres who want to watch it."

With the writing on the wall, the lawyers sought permission to
withdraw their plea, and the court ordered: "Dismissed as withdrawn".