India, April 9 -- Courts are not tasked with "moral policing" and must refrain from dispensing value-based judgments under the guise of justice, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday, scrapping the Punjab and Haryana high court's 2019 decision to impose a hefty cost of Rs.10 lakh each on music composer Vishal Dadlani and political analyst Tehseen Poonawalla for their comments on a Jain monk.

A bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan set aside the high court's directive that imposed the fine despite acknowledging that no criminal offence was made out against the two for their social media posts on Jain monk Tarun Sagar.

"The function of the court is not to do moral policing," the top court held in its order, adding that the high court...