India court allows 'vulgar' comedy channel back on air

The channel said in a statement that India’s Supreme Court had stayed a lower court order barring the station from broadcasting for six days.

“The Supreme Court today stayed the Delhi High Court order on the suspension of the channel, Comedy Central,” Sujeet Jain, group general counsel of the media company Viacom18 Media, said in a statement.

“We are happy to announce that the channel will resume broadcast this (Friday) evening,” Jain said.

The channel was ordered to stop broadcasting earlier in the week for six days as a result of a court battle between the government and media company Viacom 18, which launched the 24-hour English language channel in India in January 2012.

Two of the channel’s shows — “Stand Up Club” and “Popcorn” — came under the scrutiny of India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting last year for showing content the government considered indecent.

The scenes “depicted women as a commodity of sex” and posed a threat to “public morality or morals,” according to a notice issued to the broadcaster at the time.

The government made particular reference to a scenes in “Popcorn” that showed someone simulating sex with a dummy. -AFP