Introduction
In the past few days, whenever I opened any social media platform, all I saw was outrage over the indecent remarks made by a twenty-three-year-old developer at a comedy show. It was a joke that divided the internet. Some started hating him, some came out in his support, and a few were even sympathetic toward him. Although nobody would argue that what he said was unquestionably inappropriate and distasteful, one thing that shocked me was that he was removed from service shortly after the video surfaced online and was widely debated. A similar event was when Ranveer Allahabadia made an indecent joke at a comedy show and ended up facing legal action too[1]. One common factor in both these cases is that neither remark was made during office hours or at an official meeting. Both were made at a private gathering. But recently, social media and virality have taken over so rampantly that the line between public and private life has been blurred almost entirely.
Background
My concern here is not about whether what they said was immoral, indecent, or inappropriate. My concern is over the curtailment of Article 19(1)(a), which protects freedom of speech and expression, and the dilution of Article 21, which governs the right to life and personal liberty. My main question is this: how far is it justified to use isolated remarks, taken out of context, to remove someone from their job, especially when it directly affects their right to livelihood? Another thing worth noting is that the company that sacked the developer only acted once there was enough public backlash to start affecting its own reputation. Yes, there are workplace conduct guidelines that employees are expected to follow, but these are meant to apply during work, not outside of it. This begs the question: when does a person's personal life end and their professional life begin?
Legal Framework
Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution which deals with freedom of speech and expression, but Article 19(2) imposes reasonable restrictions to counterbalance this freedom, permitting limits in the interest of public order, decency, or defamation. Article 21 protects the right to life and personal liberty and include the right to a livelihood. In Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, the Supreme Court held that depriving a person of their livelihood is, in effect, depriving them of life itself, since no one can survive without the means to earn[2]. Courts have also relied on the doctrine of proportionality, meaning that even where an employee is genuinely at fault, the punishment imposed must still match the seriousness of the misconduct. This was made clear in Coal India Ltd. v. Mukul Kumar Choudhuri, where the Supreme Court held that a punishment should be proportionate to misconduct[3].
Analysis and Discussion
Three recent High Court decisions show how these principles actually play out, and they do not all point in the same direction.
In Hitachi Astemo Fie Pvt. Ltd. v. Nirajkumar Prabhakarrao Kadu, said on public Facebook account about a wage dispute, forcing other workers to take a stronger stand against management. The Bombay High Court upheld his dismissal. It held that free speech does not give a person the right to encourage unrest among a workforce, and that employer can take action before situation becomes difficult to manage[4].
In A. Lakshminarayanan v. Assistant General Manager – HRM, the facts were similar in one way but different in another important respect. The employee's comments were posted inside a private WhatsApp group, not on a public account. The Madras High Court quashed the disciplinary action taken against him. The judge spoke of what he called the employee's "right to vent," the idea that employees naturally have grievances against management, and that airing these grievances privately is normal and even healthy for an organisation. Drawing on the Supreme Court's earlier privacy judgment in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, the Court held that a closed group of people also has some right to speak among themselves without outside interference[5].
Taken together, these two cases suggest that Indian courts pay close attention to where the speech actually happened. Speech aimed at the public, particularly speech that could realistically cause disruption, is treated more strictly than speech shared privately within a small, trusted group.
A third case adds another layer to this picture. In Madanjit Kumar v. Central Electronics Limited, a senior employee had publicly alleged corruption against his own employer on social media, without first using the internal channels available to him. The Delhi High Court agreed that this amounted to misconduct. At the same time, it held that removing him from service altogether was too severe a punishment, since the authorities had never explained why a lighter penalty would not have been sufficient[6]. This case makes a useful distinction. A court can agree that an employee did something wrong, and still hold that the employer went too far in how it responded.
Conclusion
Indian law is not able to give one clear, one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how far it is justified to remove an employee from office over controversial remarks made off duty. Instead, courts tend to look at the context in which the statement was made, whether the speech posed real or implied harm, and whether the punishment imposed was proportionate to the offence. For employees, the right to livelihood remains robust, but it must coexist with a duty of care and mindfulness in speech, especially in an era where the line between private and public expression has grown this thin.
Reference
[1]"Supreme Court Slams YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia for 'Obscene' Remarks, Grants Interim Protection." Supreme Court Observer, 2025.
[2]Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, AIR 1986 SC 180.
[3]Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Coal India Ltd. v. Mukul Kumar Choudhuri, (2009) 15 SCC 620.
[4]Hitachi Astemo Fie Pvt. Ltd. v. Nirajkumar Prabhakarrao Kadu, 2023 SCC OnLine Bom 2652.
[5]A. Lakshminarayanan v. Assistant General Manager – HRM, W.P.(MD) No. 9754 of 2023, Madras High Court, 8 Aug. 2023; K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1.
[6]Madanjit Kumar v. Central Electronics Limited, 2026 SCC OnLine Del 720.