NEW DELHI: Samay Raina, the standup comedian who triggered national outrage and drew the Supreme Court’s ire by mocking people with disabilities, has earned the apex court’s anger again: this time for not holding a show to highlight achievements of people with disabilities that he promised to conduct to make up for his original sin.The court Tuesday imposed a cost of Rs 3 lakh each on Samay Raina and four others. Senior advocate Aparajita Singh, appearing for NGO ‘Cure SMA Foundation’, informed a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana that these comedians had reneged on their undertaking to the court.“They have filed affidavits informing the court that they could not invite NGO members to their show as they did not have their contact details and have tried to appear magnanimous by offering donations,” she said, adding Raina and others appeared to be on an “ego trip”.“We do not need their donations. The NGO is a body of well-accomplished parents whose children suffer from the rare spinal muscular atrophy disease, whose treatment is very expensive. We do not want to participate in their show when they have such an arrogant attitude,” Singh said on behalf of the NGO. The bench was particularly severe on Raina and accused him of lying and taking the court for a ride by brazenly violating his own undertaking to the apex court.“The way he is treating persons with physical disabilities, what kind of youth icon is he?” it asked.Expressing solidarity with the NGO, solicitor general Tushar Mehta said India’s youth had better icons and Raina could at best be a self-proclaimed social media influencer. “Recently, he started a show with stringed lemon and chillies and told his audience that he earlier got into trouble because he did not do this exercise as if to mock the SC,” he said.The bench, which had initially slapped a fine of Rs 10 lakh on Raina, later reduced it to Rs 3 lakh and asked the other four – Vipul Goyal, Paramjeet Singh Ghai, Sonali Thakur and Nishat Jagdish Tanwar – to also pay Rs 3 lakh costs each within two weeks. The bench also warned that none of them should think that they could say and do anything sitting on foreign soil. “We had shown leniency earlier. Instead of cashing in on it, you audaciously breached the undertaking. As an artist, you are in public life and who other than you can understand what respect and dignity mean. You must respect people with disabilities and their talents,” the CJI added.
