Will it be the end of the popular 'Santa Banta' comedy on the Internet?

Do 'sardar jokes' amount to hurting the sentiment of the community? For the first time, in a case like this, it would the Supreme Court answering the validity of the query on Friday.

A public interest litigation has been filed in the Supreme Court on Thursday for ban on websites, which spread jokes portraying the 'sardar' community as 'persons of low intellect, stupid and foolish'.

The court will hear the petition filed by one Harvinder Chowdhury, who thought it was 'about time' that such jokes, which amount to insulting the community were prevented from being propagated through the Internet. Such a complaint has come up for the first time in Delhi - that too before the Supreme Court.

Earlier, Sikh groups have on several occasions gone to the police, especially in Mumbai, seeking ban on such jokes.

The issue was first successfully raised in March 2007, when on a complaint filed by a Sikh businessman Mohinder Nanksingh Kakar, Mumbai-based publisher Ranjit Parande was arrested for publishing a book on Santa and Banta, that allegedly carried "derogatory" jokes directed at the Sikh community.

The petitioner stated that he finds it strange that when certain communities and castes are targeted, there's always much 'hue and cry' but when sardars are made the butt of jokes, there is not a single word of protest.

Lawyer Mohit Singh said: "We really do not know if the Supreme Court will entertain the petition. The current trend as is evident from the apex court striking down the provision which allowed arrest for objectionable posts on the net and its observations in the porn ban petition - shows that the court is reluctant to impose any unreasonable net-censorship. They are just jokes. The fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression granted in our Constitution is wide enough to accommodate them."