Can police decide what Diljit Dosanjh sings? What the law says

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Indore police cleared Diljit Dosanjh’s concert on one condition for the setlist: four songs had to go. With Ahmedabad’s child protection officer seeking similar curbs, who has the legal power to decide what he sings?

Indore Police cleared Diljit Dosanjh’s November 15 concert hours before it was due to begin, on the condition that organisers drop four songs flagged by child protection officials. In Ahmedabad, where Dosanjh is due to perform on November 21, the District Child Protection Officer (DCPO) has asked police to impose similar curbs.

The requests followed a complaint from a Chandigarh-based professor who alleged that some of Dosanjh’s songs glorified alcohol, drugs and weapons.

The two cases raise a question about who can decide what a singer performs. A child protection officer can raise concerns with police. Enforcing a restriction on the setlist requires a separate legal basis.

In Indore, the district child protection officer wrote to the venue management, asking it to drop four tracks over concerns about their effect on children. Police subsequently made it a condition of the concert’s approval that organisers leave Patiala Peg, 5 Taara, Case and Jatt Uthe Fire Karda off the setlist.

In Ahmedabad, the child protection officer wrote to the police commissioner seeking preventive action. The officer asked police to keep songs said to glorify intoxicants or weapons off the setlist, prevent children from being invited onstage and bar the use of bullet belts during the performance.

Section 106 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, provides for district child protection units. Rule 85 of the 2016 Model Rules sets out their functions, including coordinating services for vulnerable children and helping implement the Act. These provisions give the units a role in addressing child welfare concerns and confer no general power to dictate a concert setlist.

Former Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur told India Today that a district child protection officer had no authority to issue such directions. He said any police restriction would have to be based on an objective assessment of whether the lyrics glorify alcohol or drug use and whether performing the songs could encourage such behaviour.

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