New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down Section 66A of the IT Act that allowed arrests for objectionable content online. The apex court termed the provision as ‘vague’, saying, “what may be offensive to a person, may not be offensive to others”.
“Section 66A of IT Act clearly affects Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression enshrined under Constitution,” the Supreme Court said.
“Governments may come and go but section 66A will remain forever,” SC added, while refusing to consider Centre’s assurance that the law in question will not be misused.
The apex court, however, refused to strike down two other provisions of the IT Act that provide blocking of sites.
Earlier, a batch of petitions challenged the constitutional validity of certain sections of the cyber law, including a provision under which a person can be arrested for allegedly posting “offensive” contents on websites.
A bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and R.F. Nariman had on February 26 reserved its judgment after the government concluded its arguments contending that Section 66A of the Information Technology Act cannot be “quashed” merely because of the possibility of its “abuse”.
Additional Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta had said that the government did not want to curtail the freedom of speech and expression at all which is enshrined in the Constitution, but the vast cyber world could not be allowed to remain unregulated.
However, the court had said that terms like “illegal”, “grossly offensive” and “menacing character” were vague expressions and these words were likely to be misunderstood and abused.
Some of the petitions seek setting aside of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act which empowers the police to arrest a person for allegedly posting offensive materials on social networking sites.
Section 66A reads: “Any person who sends by any means of a computer resource any information that is grossly offensive or has a menacing character; or any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.”
The first PIL on the issue was filed in 2012 by a law student Shreya Singhal, who sought amendment in Section 66A of the Act, after two girls — Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Shrinivasan — were arrested in Palghar in Thane district as one of them posted a comment against the shutdown in Mumbai following Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray’s death and the other “liked” it.
The apex court had on May 16, 2013, come out with an advisory that a person, accused of posting objectionable comments on social networking sites, cannot be arrested without police getting permission from senior officers like IG or DCP.
The direction had come in the wake of numerous complaints of harassment and arrests, sparking public outrage. It had, however, refused to pass an interim order for a blanket ban on the arrest of such persons across the country.
