Author: admin

Categories
Corporate Litigation

One-member meetings

The High Courts of Kerala and of Punjab and Haryana have considered whether a meeting of one member alone is permissible, but have not satisfactorily laid out the law on one-member meetings. Though neither court was faced with facts specifically requiring resolution of the entire issue, both judgments leave certain critical issues unexamined while one has, in apparent error, missed the point that the statutory language itself permits one-person meetings in certain circumstances.

Quorum for meetings

Section 174 of the Companies Act, 1956 (“the Act”) prescribes the quorum requirements for a general meeting.

Sub-section (1) prescribes that two members, in the case of a private company and five, in the case of a public company, personally present shall be the quorum for a meeting of the company, unless the Articles provide for a larger number.

Sub-sections (3) to (5) are applicable, under sub-section (2), unless the Articles provide otherwise. These subsections provide that:

Sub-section (3) provides that a meeting called by requisition of members shall, if there is no quorum, stand dissolved.

Sub-section (4) provides that meetings other than those dealt with under sub-section (3) shall, in case of lack of quorum, stand adjourned.

Sub-section (5) provides that “if at the adjourned meeting also, a quorum is not present … the members present shall be a quorum”.

‘A meeting of one person’

Sub-section (1) makes it clear that, as a general rule, a meeting of a company cannot proceed with less than two members.

The sense imported by the word ‘meeting’ itself suggests the rule is well-founded; the phrase ‘a meeting of one person’ elicits an intuitive sense of unhappiness of wording.

The position under sub-section (1) is also in accordance with common law. In Sharpe v. Dawes, [1876] 2 QBD 26 (CA) it was held that a meeting, ordinarily and by the very nature of the term, implies a coming face to face of at least two persons and there is no ‘meeting’, speaking generally, if one only attends. In Re. London Flats Ltd., 1969 (1) WLR 711, which arose from very interesting facts (unfortunately beyond the scope this post) holds to similar effect.

English law recognises, however, that the word ‘meeting’ might be used in a special sense, to mean a ‘meeting’ of only one person. East v. Bennett Bros., [1911] 1 Ch. D. 163 is an example of such use. That case involved interpretation of a provision requiring the vote of a class of members in meeting. The Court held that the word ‘meeting’ in that provision permitted a one-member meeting, since the provision was framed at a time when the class comprised of one person only.

Though it is, therefore, plain that the presence of two members is ordinarily a prerequisite for a valid meeting in India as much as in England, the circumstances when this rule may be relaxed remain unclear. The question, therefore, resolves itself into whether there are exceptional circumstances in Indian law which permit a one-person meeting.

The provisions in the Act permitting the Government and CLB to direct that a one-person meeting be convened are some obvious exceptions, but involve intervention of judicial or administrative authorities.

Less obvious, however, is the fact that Section 174 itself, properly read, provides for a single-person meeting in certain circumstances.

Deemed quorum of one member

Under sub-section (1) of Section 174, the quorum for a meeting of the members of a private company is two, except where the Articles prescribe quorum of a greater number. Sub-section (2) makes sub-sections (3) to (5) applicable, unless the Articles provide otherwise. Therefore, sub-sections (1), (3), (4) and (5) govern meetings of a private company whose Articles do not require deference to amendatory or contrary provisions (“the Default Case”).

Shorn of unnecessary detail, these provisions mandate that a meeting lacking quorum shall stand adjourned (to the same place and time, unless the Board determines otherwise) by a week. Where there is no quorum at the adjourned meeting, members present constitute quorum (a “Deemed Quorum”).

In the Default Case, sub-section (5) operates, of necessity, to constitute a Deemed Quorum of one member. This is because lack of quorum arises, in the Default Case, exclusively where one member only is present.

It is a well-established principle of statutory interpretation that a provision ought to be construed in a manner which does not render it, or any part of it, otiose. Practically, this rule would require that a provision be given effect in every situation to which it can reasonably be said to apply.

Therefore, Section 174 has to be read, in the Default Case, as permitting an adjourned meeting of one person alone. To refuse to do so would be to render Section 174(5) otiose in the Default Case (a situation to which it can reasonably be said to apply).

The judgments of the High Courts 

The Punjab and Haryana High Court, in Bhankerpur Simbhaoli Beverages Pvt. Ltd. v. Sarabhjit Singh, [1996] 86 Comp. Cas. 842 (P&H), was dealing with an allegation that an extraordinary general meeting of the company was illegal since only one person was present. The Court held that “in order to give a finding as to whether the extraordinary general meeting was held, it is necessary to find out first, as to whether at least two shareholders were present in the meeting because a single person cannot constitute a meeting”.

This position, for which the Court drew reliance from, inter alia, the English cases above, went uncontested as is clear from the Court’s observation that “the proposition is not disputed by Mr. G Ramaswamy, senior advocate, and rightly so”.

Insofar as the Court proceeded on an admission, the judgment cannot provide much authority for the position in law. In any event, the Court has stated little more than what is already clear from Section 174(1), that is, as a general rule, there cannot be a meeting of one person.

In Kerala v. West Coast Planters’ Agencies Ltd., AIR 1958 Ker 41, the Kerala High Court – in appeals against Orders of acquittal in the prosecution of a company and its managing director – dealt with whether there could be a general meeting under Section 76 of the Companies Act consisting of one member (the company, at the relevant time, had only one member) and whether the managing director could be prosecuted under Section 76(2) for failure to convene such meeting of one member.

The Magistrate’s order of acquittal, the Court notes, took “the common sense view that for a meeting there must be at least two persons, that a man cannot meet himself, and that the general meeting required by Section 76(1) being an impossibility, no liability attached under Section 76(2) or Section 133(3) to either of the accused”.

The Court placed its imprimatur on the Order of acquittal and the view taken by the Magistrate. Relying, inter alia, on Sharp v. Dawes (supra) and East v. Bennett Brothers (supra), the Court said: “…[T]he common sense view taken by the Magistrate is also the true view in law”.

Excepting for one dimension discussed infra, this judgment has also not added much to the general rule that a meeting requires more than one person.

Objections to deemed quorums of one-member and the Section 13 Rule

The two objections raised against reading Section 174 as necessarily permitting an adjourned meeting of one person in the Default Case, although distinguishable, are based on a common premiss and flow into one another.

The first of the two objections is that the interpretation of Section 174(5) as permitting a one-person meeting is contrary to the literal interpretation rule, since Section 174(5) uses the word ‘members’ while mandating that those remaining at the adjourned meeting would constitute quorum. The answer to this objection is simply that it fails to account for the General Clauses Act, 1897 (“the GC Act”). Section 13 of the GC Act provides:

“13. Gender and Number – In all (Central Acts) and Regulations, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context – words importing the masculine gender shall be taken to include females, and words in the singular shall include the plural, and vice versa.”
(emphasis supplied)

The interpretive tool in Section 13 (“the Section 13 Rule”), as applied, requires that the word ‘members’ in sub-section (5) be read to include ‘member’. There is clearly nothing repugnant in the subject or context of Section 174 that excludes its application.

As a matter of fact, the context of Section 174(5) supports application of the Section 13 Rule since one dimension of its applicability (that cannot be excluded without violating the rule against redundancy) necessarily involves a situation where one member alone is present, that is, an adjourned meeting of a ‘Default Case company’ lacking quorum (a ‘Default Case company’ refers, obviously, to a private limited company whose quorum, under S.174(1) is two members and to whom sub-sections (3) to (5) applies).

The second objection to interpreting Section 174(5) as permitting a single-person meeting – in essence an extrapolation from the first – grounded the decision of the High Court of Kerala in the West Coast Planters’ Agency Case. The State had argued before the High Court that:

“Regulations 51 and 52 in Table A to the First Schedule to the Act (now embodied in Section 174 of the Companies Act, 1956) … read together imply that a meeting can be held with less than two members. 

“… Regulation 51 lays down that two members personally present shall be a quorum in the case of a private company and Regulation 52 says that if at an adjourned meeting a quorum is not present, the members present (which covers the case of one member, the plural including the singular, and which, in the case of a private company can be only one) shall be quorum”.
(emphasis supplied)

The High Court rejected the State’s proposition on the basis of a ‘reductio ad absurdum’ argument, holding that:

“if Section 147 and 162(iv) of the Act contemplate the case of a one-man company, they contemplate also a no-man company, for the reduction of membership below two or seven as the case may be, can as well be to zero as to one (similarly in the case of the regulations, the absence of a quorum of two includes a case where none is present).”
(emphasis supplied)

There is no reference in the judgment to the General Clauses Act, 1897 and it is not known whether the State based its argument on the Section 13 or not. That provision, however, is a complete response to the Court’s objection.

The reading of ‘members’ as including ‘member’ in Section 174(5) is based on a rule of interpretation contained in Section 13 of the GC Act, which is a statutory prescription. This rule requires, context permitting, that a word in the singular shall include the plural and vice versa. Clearly, the provision does not extend to reading the singular or plural, as used, to include ‘none’.

The High Court’s view is, therefore, but a flight of fancy, unmoored from readily available interpretive tools. Apart from being mandatorily applicable to determine Parliament’s true intention, these tools, properly applied, would have left no room for such concerns as the Court raised.

Cases other than the default case

It remains to be determined whether one person can constitute a Deemed Quorum in cases other than the Default Case, viz.:

a) In cases of public limited companies where sub-section (1) applies

b) In cases of either public / private companies where a higher quorum stipulated by sub-section (1) is prescribed by Articles in exercise of power conferred by that provision

(The Default Case, together with the cases at (a) and (b), comprise the ‘universal set’ of situations conceivable under Section 174. Consequently, if a Deemed Quorum of one member is permissible in these cases also, then adjourned meetings can proceed with a Deemed Quorum of one member in all cases.)

Although absence of quorum in meetings of companies at (a) and (b) does not necessarily mean that one member alone is present (as it does in the Default Case), it must be permissible for an adjourned meeting to go on, under Section 174(5), with a Deemed Quorum of one member in these cases also.

To hold otherwise would arguably violate Article 14; such a reading implies that Parliament has chosen to treat ‘Default Case companies’ and other companies differently, although they are similarly situated (that is, faced with an adjourned meeting where one member alone is present despite lapse of stipulated time from commencement).

(Aditya Narayan is an advocate at the Karnataka High Court.)

Categories
Litigation Lounge Supreme Court of India

Strike a balance

In his autobiography, Before Memory Fades, Fali S. Nariman wrote:


“We demean ourselves and our profession when we resolve to strike work, and (so) paralyse the working of courts, where public cases and causes demand our expertise, intercession and assistance.”
Pro-Telengana advocates recently boycotted courts in Andhra Pradesh. The protesting advocates had demanded a 42 per cent quota for advocates from the Telengana region in the appointments to various law officers, such as government pleaders and public prosecutors in courts, as a compensatory measure. After many days of stalemate, the Government finally acceded to the demands. The episode generated sharp and divergent public opinion about the mode of protest.

Andhra Pradesh High Court. Image here and on the article banner by Cephas 405; original image published here. Image published under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 License.
Andhra Pradesh High Court. Image here and on the article banner by Cephas 405; original image published here. Image published under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 License.

When the Supreme Court in Harish Uppal v. Union of India, (2003) 2 SCC 45 was faced with a similar question, it had observed:

“It is settled law that it is unprofessional as well as unbecoming for a lawyer who has accepted a brief to refuse to attend Court even in pursuance of a call for strike or boycott by the Bar Association or the Bar Council. It is settled law that Courts are under an obligation to hear and decide cases brought before it and cannot adjourn matters merely because lawyers are on strike.”

The Hon’ble Court had also asserted:

“Unfortunately strikes and boycott calls are becoming a frequent spectacle. Strikes, boycott calls and even unruly and unbecoming conduct are becoming a frequent spectacle. On the slightest pretence strikes and / or boycott calls are resorted to. The judicial system is being held to ransom. Administration of law and justice is threatened. The rule of law is undermined.”

However, a view has been expressed that the observations of the Hon’ble Supreme Court are apt only in situations where a lawful redress is available to remedy injustices. Instances of protest for self-determination almost certainly require special treatment. Without delving into the details and the correctness or otherwise of the pro-Telangana agitation, it has to be said that there is some substance to that view.

It would not be out of place to mention here that the movement for Indian freedom is replete with incidents of boycott of courts by lawyers and freedom fighters. In fact, resolutions adopted by the Indian National Congress during the Non-Cooperation Movement, included the ‘boycott of courts by lawyers and litigants’ on the agenda.

Lawyers are officers of the court and have an overriding professional duty to facilitate the administration of justice. Clearly, the ‘strike weapon’ ought to be employed sparingly and wisely and only as a last option, but each lawyer should decide whether and when to use it according to his or her own ‘political sensibility’.

(Pavan Kumar is an advocate at the High Court of Andhra Pradesh.)

Categories
History Lounge

“No man is more adroit in presenting his case” – a reflection on M.A. Jinnah: Part 1

Mohammad Ali Jinnah evokes strong responses in South Asia, and has been cast in a multitude of roles depending on which side of the political line he is viewed from – a master negotiator, a charismatic leader, a cunning politician, a secular liberal, and a conservative reactionary. Few, however, see him as a lawyer, his primary professional training that helped launch his career in public life and shaped both, his political career, and his ideological vision.

Lawyers of course, overwhelmingly dominate the galaxy of political leaders in colonial India. This was partly structural. Professional and middle classes have always played a significant role in republican movements. In British India, law, unlike medicine or engineering, was the only profession that could be practiced without being employed by the colonial government. Jinnah is unique in being amongst the handful of lawyers who became equally successful in both their fields.

A young Jinnah in traditional attire.
A young Jinnah in traditional attire.

Jinnah was born into a Gujarati Khoja Muslim family engaged in trade in Karachi. As a successful trader in British India, Jinnah’s father realised that they had to forge closer links with British traders. It was to learn trade that Jinnah was sent to London. At the age of 15, he began a three-year apprenticeship with the London office of the Graham’s Shipping and Trading Company, a firm that specialised in trading in textiles and port wine. The minutiae of trade did not interest Jinnah, so within a few months of reaching England, he enrolled instead at the Inns of Court to train as a barrister. An apocryphal story suggests that his choice of Lincoln’s Inn was guided by the fact that it listed the Prophet Muhammad’s name over its doors among a list of the world’s greatest lawgivers. Jinnah’s training was purely vocational: he did not have a college education, but he passed his Bar with flying colours, graduating at the age of 19 as the youngest Indian barrister of that time.

From liit's photostream, Flickr. Original at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/liits/4757763095/
From liit’s photostream, Flickr. Original at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/liits/4757763095/

Jinnah returned to Bombay to begin practice at the Bombay Bar on August 24, 1896. The choice of Bombay, instead of his hometown Karachi, was not surprising. Bombay was the leading city of colonial India: it was liberal and cosmopolitan, but perhaps most importantly, was the business capital of India and therefore, the centre of commercial litigation.

Unusually for a lawyer of that period, Jinnah did not begin as a pupil to someone else but started an independent practice. Indian barristers had a hard time building a practice in India, the Indian trained vakils were often hostile and litigants were indifferent to the ‘foreign qualification’. Contrary to popular perception, most Indian law students passed their exams with the help of coaches, and had a limited command over English. While they were versed in English law and procedure, they knew little about the workings of the Indian Penal Code. Moreover, much of the commercial practice was controlled by a monopoly of British solicitor firms, who had their own network of barristers.

Like today, most young lawyers in the 19th century relied on networks of family and kin to get cases. Belonging to a commercial family, it was not surprising that Jinnah’s first case came from home. At the age of 22, he represented his uncle, Ganji Walji, a Khoja merchant who another Khoja merchant had sued for the recovery of Rs.6,790/- due as interest. This litigation, when Jinnah stepped in, was ruining his father’s business.

He did find mentors in Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, a Parsi leading lawyer, and Mr. McPherson, the Advocate General of the state, both of whom allowed Jinnah to access their respective library. McPherson sought to help out a struggling barrister by nominating him to the lower judiciary. In 1900, Jinnah was appointed Third Presidency Magistrate for Bombay, a position that paid Rs.1,500/- a month, and which placed him among a handful of Indians who wielded tremendous executive power and influence. Six months after being appointed, however, Jinnah declined to continue in the position.

While he had built his practice as a civil and commercial lawyer, it was in the period following the Magistracy that he began appearing in criminal cases, often engaged by the government. Perhaps the most famous of his early cases was the murder of a Hindu seer, Sayaji Baba, by an ‘alleged lunatic’. Jinnah assisted the prosecution in proving that the accused held a grudge against the victim before the murder and thus, despite the appearance of lunacy, committed premeditated murder.

Jinnah’s career as a public advocate bloomed after he appeared as a lawyer in the ‘Caucus’ case. The case dealt with the interference of the government in the election of local judges to the Bombay Municipal Council. The Indian Councils Act had introduced limited self-government in municipalities and half the seats of the Corporation could be contested from a limited electorate of 12,000 taxpayers. The other half consisted of nominated officials. The ‘elected’ wing of the Corporation was dominated by moderate Congress politicians, including Jinnah’s mentor Pherozeshah Mehta. In 1907 the ‘caucus’ of nominated officials connived with the government and arranged the defeat of Congressmen like Mehta. Surprisingly, Mehta, a distinguished barrister himself, hired Jinnah to plead his election petition. While Jinnah won only a partial victory (Mehta was declared elected, but many of the charges against the government were not accepted), the case made Jinnah nationally famous. This was the first time the colonial government was accused of rigging elections before its own courts, and the proceedings were extensively covered in both, the English and vernacular press. This case perhaps exemplified Jinnah’s early politics, exposing the British regime’s faults and contradictions through the constitutional framework of British rule.

Compared with his contemporaries, like Gandhi, Jinnah spent a relatively short period as a ‘briefless barrister’. His eloquent speaking style and incisive arguments helped his practice grow. As Frank Moraes was to describe his courtroom manner in later years, “Few lawyers command a more attentive audience. No man is more adroit in presenting his case. If to achieve the maximum result with the minimum effort is the hallmark of artistry, Jinnah is an artist of the craft. He likes to get down to the bare bones of the brief; in stating the essentials of his case, his manner is masterly. The drab courtroom acquires an atmosphere as he speaks. Juniors crane their necks to follow every movement of this tall, well groomed figure, senior counsels listen closely; the Judge is all attention.”

Jinnah’s public prominence grew in 1916, when he appeared as the defence lawyer for Bal Gangadhar Tilak in a sedition case. Tilak had previously been convicted for sedition and had spent time in prison. Jinnah was unsuccessful in securing Tilak’s release in the District Court of Poona, but was able to have the conviction overturned at the Bombay High Court. His argument was twofold: firstly, he argued that Indians as British citizens were entitled to criticise the bureaucracy and they owed loyalty to the British crown and not the government of India; secondly, the C.I.D. had translated Tilak’s Marathi speeches incorrectly, and the English translation wrongly gave the impression of sedition. The case turned on the nuances of Marathi, a language Jinnah was unfamiliar with, but after careful study and briefing, he ably led the cross-examination of expert witnesses. Incidentally, Jinah had prepared the line of defence in this case, and the adoption of this line was a condition for this accepting the case. While presenting his bail application in 1908, Jinnah had reluctantly refused to defend Tilak in his first sedition case because of Tilak’s insistence of dictating his own line of defence.

Jinnah engaged a number of what could be termed ‘free speech’ cases, challenging the draconian press laws that were enacted during the First World War. The most prominent of these was his defence of the Bombay Chronicle, a nationalist English language daily. Jinnah, as a classical liberal lawyer, often spoke up for civil liberties, most famously attacking the colonial government in the Central Assembly over the illegality of Bhagat Singh’s trial. Since Bhagat Singh and his co-accused had refused to cooperate with the prosecution, a special ordinance was promulgated, which permitted the trial in absentia. Jinnah’s scathing attack on the government turned on the harm caused to the rule of law by this ordinance. He argued, “I say that no judge who has an iota of judicial mind or a sense of justice can ever be a party to a trial of that character and pass the sentence of death without a shudder and a pang of conscience. This is a farce which you propose to enact”. The law he pointed out failed to meet the standards that British common law demanded. Even at his most emphatic, Jinnah’s arguments were framed in legal terms.

(Rohit De is a scholar of legal history.)

Categories
Law Schools

Parliamentary debating in law schools

The Parliamentary style of debating is the most common internationally. A derivative of the formal procedures followed for policy-making and discussions in the British House of Commons, also known as Westminster Parliamentary Procedures, it is a formal style of debating, focusing on teams participating in the form of the “government” and the “opposition”.

A University-level parliamentary-style debate in progress.
A University-level parliamentary-style debate in progress.

The “government” is also sometimes referred to as the “proposition”, because in Parliament the policy that is to be discussed and debated is referred to as the “motion”. Therefore, parliamentarians initiate the debate, and hence, the quite literal term “proposition”. The crux of these procedures was “majority rule”; that is, getting the majority of delegates present to vote in a particular manner (either for or against the proposed policy, depending on the side one represents).

Considered to be a refined and formal style, the basic premise of these procedures was picked almost verbatim for the Parliamentary Style of Debating.

The premier debating event in this category is the World Universities Debating Championship, colloquially referred to “the Worlds”. Here, speakers from each side are usually given a fifteen-minute notice of the motion before the debate. In keeping with the concept of a “motion”, the subject of the debate is loosely defined at the start, and refined further by the “proposition”, when speakers start the debate. The opposition has to define their response upon proposition to further refine the motion. But in keeping with the spirit of equal representation, all teams get the opportunity of appearing as the “proposition” as well as the “opposition”. To maintain the spirit of Parliamentary Procedures, each side can consist of two teams, forming a “coalition”. To make the debating more intensive, each team within the coalition must outline the motion in a specific and exclusive manner.

The opposition can raise clarifications and questions in the form of “Points of Information” (“POIs”), which the speaker holding the floor may accept or reject. The speaker has the discretion to choose the POIs they wish to respond to but they cannot reject all. One must keep in mind at this time, that the speakers are presenting their submission before a notional audience of members of Parliament, the crux of the debate is to “convince” them of the validity of their team’s stand on the motion.

In order to prevent an unfair advantage to any team during the debate, there are clearly defined rules determining how the debate is to be conducted and judged. The speakers are judged both individually and as a team by “adjudicators” throughout the event. Adjudicators fulfil the dual role of judging the quality of the debate as well as serving as the “audience” to the speakers. In this capacity, therefore, they ensure that the speakers are following the rules, maintaining proper conduct, and also making substantive points through their submissions.

Some of the main rules adjudicators watch out for when the debate is in process include the motion being defined too “tightly”; that is, with no room for realistic, substantive opposition to the motion defined, or “tautologies”; that is, motions that are self-evidently true. For example, a tautology would be “This house maintains that the sun rises from the east”. This is a true fact and cannot be refuted by the opposition. A “tight” definition would be “This house maintains that it is unfair to run people over by automobiles”. The opposition would evidently have a tough time coming up with reasons to refute this.

Since the debates are partly spontaneous in nature, as well as a coming together of diverse individuals from different educational backgrounds, another definitional rule for motion that is followed strictly is the prevention of “specific knowledge” cases. As suggested by the term, a motion that is defined in a manner that requires the opposition to have specific, in-depth, or technical knowledge is not acceptable within the Parliamentary Debates. For example, “This house maintains that compound X is the most effective raw material for creation of material Y”.

It must be pointed out that in keeping with the formal style adopted whilst debating, the viability of the motion for debating has to be adjudged by the speakers, and the adjudicator would not reject a motion outright. If the opposition feels that the motion is unacceptable because of the reasons mentioned above, they must point that out at the start of their speech, along with clear reasons for the same, as well as an alternate definition to the motion. If accepted by the adjudicators, the opposition can continue to follow the motion they defined and debate on that. In such a situation, two parallel definitions of the motion are debated upon by the proposition and the opposition, and the adjudicators judge the teams on both. Each side get a chance to offer a “constructive”, that is, building of arguments, and a “rebuttal”, that is, responding to specific aspects of the opposing side’s arguments.

At the conclusion of the debate, the adjudicators make their decision on the basis of content as well as style.

Because of the widespread following of the Parliamentary Style Debates, there are no absolute rules of procedures. Each university customises the main theme of the debate to its own settings. These are always defined beforehand. However, the overall context remains the same.

Happy debating!

 

 

Categories
Human Rights Lounge Uncategorized

Drawing a line – Why I lost my enthusiasm for Draw Mohammed Day

I didn’t quite know what to make of Draw Muhammed Day on May 20.

True to South Park canon, the source of the problem is a Canadian. Fox News had published her name as the originator of the idea that went viral, even though she has long backed off. The issue dates back to Viacom’s censorship of the 201st episode of South Park. The bi-centennial anniversary was a celebration of South Park’s major characters and plotlines. Yes, even the Super Best Friends who were resurrected to show Buddha snorting cocaine and Jesus using porn. Ironically, Viacom bleeped the show extensively and in particular, Kyle’s teaching point at the end. Allegedly, what Kyle had learnt that day concerned not cowing down to absurd terror. The Canadian was objecting to such censorship.

In the beginning, the banning of Facebook was just one more thing to roll your eyes at Pakistan for. Yet, trawling the pictures people had posted, I saw mainly pure Islamophobia on display. Many drawings depicted the Prophet as a pig. Others invest him with devilish aspects. A common theme was him abusing little girls as a paedophile. Soiling himself was almost a leitmotif. Then there were some that were so ridiculous in their attempt to be offensive that they had genuine artistic merit. Case in point- the I am Muhammed and I have a bread roll in my bum cartoon.

This is not to say that all of the cartoons were designed to be offensive. My favourite had to be the simple stick figure sniffing a flower. Someone had also drawn a rather good portrait of the boxer Cassius Clay. There was even a montage of the long tradition of aesthetic paintings of the Prophet in Shia culture.

When it comes to depicting the Prophet, the issue is more complex than a freedom of expressionversus religious sensitivity debate. This point is best expressed by Karseten Kjar’s documentary Bloody Cartoons. Made as part of a series for BBC entitled Why Democracy?, it peels back layers of the carefully planned protests against Denmark to find it is not much different from the Rushdie fatwa issue. The Satanic Verses controversy is seen by many as a classic wag-the-dog exercise by the Ayatollah. He needed to shore up political support for the war against Iraq, which wasn’t going well. The scene that seals the deal in the documentary is when the filmmaker buys the last poster of Muhammed (depicted in a Disneyish hero iconography) in an Iranian Islamic super-store. The Iranians were going to stop publishing the hero poster to show solidarity with their Sunni Arab brothers (whose guts they ordinarily hate and fought above-mentioned war with).

In many ways this represents how much freedom of expression has shrunk due to that old villain: globalisation. When Super Best Friends was aired in 2001, no one took any notice of it. The Danish cartoons controversy has changed all that. Viacom no longer airs the episode that ran unimpeded for nearly ten years.

The Facebook, er, face-off between offended Muslims and those who are blatantly enjoying the anonymity of the Internet to rile them is very different from traditional conflict. It is not one artist against some fundamentalists. It is thousands of common people versus each other.

I quickly lost any enthusiasm for what had initially seemed a genuine grass-roots reprisal against fear, through social networking. There is a line between challenging the oppression of blasphemy and expressing hate against a people.

Somewhere, cartoons had stopped being funny.

Shubhodeep Shome is a writer and lawyer.