Indore Court Quashes Case Against Sania, Kushboo

A local court has quashed a case filed against Tennis star Sania Mirza and south Indian actress Kushboo over their view on pre-marital sex.

Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Suman Shrivastava said that Sania and Kushboo had expressed their view over the pre-martial sex in regard to deadly AIDS disease.

Therefore, prima facie there was no merit in taking cognizance of the case, the JMFC said, dismissing it on July 7. "Every citizen, according to the Constitution, has the right to freedom of expression," JMFC observed.

One Manohar Bhamare, 50, on the basis of newspapers' report had filed a case in the court against Sania and Kushboo on November 18, 2005.

In his petition, Bhamare said that the obscene views of Sania and Kushboo had hurt the feelings of his three unmarried daughters and scores of such girls across the country.

Kushboo, in a 2005 interview, had said that it was not wrong for women to have pre-martial sex as long as they took precautions. Following this, criminal cases were filed against her in Tamil Nadu courts.

She was joined in by Sania Mirza. However, after protests over her reported remarks over pre-martial sex, Sania had strongly denied saying it.

This year, the Apex Court had dismissed all 22 criminal cases against Kushboo.