New Delhi, Apr 8 (Reporter) In a significant ruling reinforcing the limits of judicial discretion, the Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the Rs 10 lakh costs imposed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on musician Vishal Dadlani and political commentator Tehseen Poonawalla over their 2016 tweets mocking Jain monk Tarun Sagar. The apex court sternly observed that "moral policing is not the function of the court." A bench, comprising Justices A S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan, delivered the judgment while hearing an appeal filed by Poonawalla challenging the 2019 High Court order. The High Court had quashed the criminal proceedings against both individuals but went on to impose substantial costs on them, reasoning that such a penalty was needed to discourage similar acts in the future. “It would be appropriate to impose the costs of Rs 10 lakh each... so that in future they may not mock at any head of a religious sect, just to gain publicity on social media,” the High Court had said. The top court strongly criticized this reasoning, remarking, "No notice is served. What kind of order is this? The court should not go on moral policing. This is not the function of the court at all." The apex court noted that once the High Court had concluded that no criminal offence was made out, it had no justification to impose costs on the appellants. “We are of the view that after finding that absolutely no offence is made out, the High Court ought not to exercise advisory jurisdiction by telling the appellant that the contribution made by the priest was much more than what the appellant and the other co-accused have contributed. The function of the court is not to do moral policing,” the Supreme Court stated in its judgment. The case arose from tweets posted in 2016 by Dadlani and Poonawalla criticising the speech of Jain monk Tarun Sagar, who had addressed the Haryana Legislative Assembly unclothed, following the Digambar Jain tradition. While the monk later forgave both individuals, a third-party complainant (not affiliated with the Jain community) initiated criminal proceedings, alleging promotion of enmity and religious disharmony. Although the High Court quashed the case in 2019, it imposed hefty costs, citing the need to deter similar behaviour. The Supreme Court today overturned that aspect of the ruling, asserting that the judiciary's role is to interpret law, not to enforce societal morals...////...