Not every nude painting can be described as obscene, the Bombay High Court said on Friday while ordering the Customs department to release works by renowned artists F N Souza and Akbar Padamsee seized last year on the ground of being “obscene material”. A division bench of Justices M S Sonak and Jitendra Jain quashed a July 2024 order passed by the Assistant Commissioner of Mumbai Customs, confiscating the artwork, noting that it “suffers from perversity and unreasonableness.”

“The Assistant Commissioner Customs has failed to appreciate that sex and obscenity are not always synonymous. Obscene material is that which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest. Such an order, in our opinion, is unsustainable and must go,” HC said. The bench allowed a petition filed by a firm, B K Polimex India Pvt Ltd, owned by city-based businessman and art connoisseur Mustafa Karachiwala against the Customs order. The court said the seized artwork shall be released immediately and not later than two weeks to the petitioner.