The Supreme Court has scrapped a contentious law that was seen as a major infringement of the freedom of speech on line. Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, introduced in 2000, has been declared unconstitutional today.
The case was closely followed as the implications of this was related to settle how Indians, specially for even when kids like class XI student were humiliated and tortured by the demonised powerful Muslim leader Azam Khan in UP. Now Mahapatras of the world can proudly use the Internet and social media, as well with the fundamental rights of the freedom of speech.
One of the main problems with the act was that it was framed in vague and sweeping language, which allows law enforcement authorities to interpret it in a subjective manner,for instance what one mean by one information is 'grossly offensive' and has menacing character'?
It was more ambiguous and arbitratory when any email or social media post is forwarded or even shared,and if that does not suit any political or otherwise powerful person,one may easily work it out with the help of government machinery to call it 'grossly offensive'.
Similarly, if someone has individual different view , than he may be debarred from presenting it only because others have a different views, even without an iota of hate or insult to others.
Yes by making the act so open ended and subjective, the government had tried to save itself the trouble of having to define each and every cyber crime, but what they have been negligent and grossly ignored the fact that the present form of the act had easily blended itself to prosecuting people who dare to have and express a controversial or different opinion that may not necessarily be dangerous.
Apart from raising objections to who could determine what constituted 'grossly offensive content', the court has also not been impressed with the government argument that the section was needed to protect government data from hackers, and had pointed out that this eventuality was already dealt with viruses and hacking for which Section 65 of the IT Act was relevant.
The apex court had also on 16 May, 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.
And this was the main issue brought up by the Supreme Court while it was hearing the petitions against the act.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.
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."
India Honest completely agrees that this was a contentious issue and the main contention as given by most of the petitioners was that Section 66A is vague and allows the police arbitrary interpretation and misuse of the law,and this is now proved true by the Supreme Court.
It is a shameful defeat of arrogant politicians, like of the demonised Muslim leaderAzam Khan and a grand victory of democracy and all of the worshippers of free speech like Professor Mahapatras of the world.