Indian
Government Notified the Information Technology act 2000, also known
as ITA-2000 on October 17, 2000 for facilitating and authorising
various commercial transactions. In the preamble to the act, this aim
is well defined and says:
“An
Act to provide legal recognition for transactions carried out by
means of electronic data interchange and other means of electronic
communication, commonly referred to as "electronic commerce",
which involve the use of alternatives to paper-based methods of
communication and storage of information, to facilitate electronic
filing of documents with the Government agencies and further to amend
the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, the Bankers'
Books Evidence Act, 1891 and the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 and
for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.”
The
act also defined some offences such as Tampering with computer source
documents - Intentional concealment, destruction or alteration of
source code when the computer source code is required to be kept or
maintained by law for the time being in force ( section 65) and
hacking (Section 66), as punishable and proscribed punishments. A new
section called Section 66A was added as an amendment in 2008 and was
notified in February 2009. This section in short, defined the
punishment for sending “offensive” messages through a computer or
any other communication device like a mobile phone or a tablet. A
conviction could fetch a maximum of three years in jail and a fine.
There
was nothing wrong with this added section except the fact that the
meaning of the word “offensive” was kept very vague (perhaps
intentionally.) According to law experts, the word could have a very
wide connotation (an associated or secondary meaning of a word or
expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning) and would
be open to distinctive and varied interpretations. It is highly
subjective as what could be innocuous for one person, someone else
may find it offensive and may lead to complaints from him. If police
decide to prima facie accept the latter person’s view, they can
make an arrest under this section.
That
this section could be misused, became very clear in next 3 or 4
years. Two girls from Palghar in Maharashtra had made comments on
their facebok page in November 2012 about shutdown of Mumbai for the
funeral of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray. Their comment outraged some
Shiv Sena followers, who complained to police and Police arrested the
girls under section 66A. In the same year, four more arrests were
reported under this section.
Firstly,
Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra was arrested for
forwarding caricatures on Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on
Facebook. followed by arrest of activist Aseem Trivedi for drawing
cartoons lampooning Parliament and the Constitution to depict their
ineffectiveness. An Air India employee Mayank Sharma and K V Rao from
Mumbai were arrested for allegedly posting offensive comments against
politicians on their Facebook group. Finally Businessman Ravi
Srinivasan was booked by Puducherry police for an allegedly offensive
tweet against the son of a former cabinet minister.
Following
these arrests, there was an outrage from all quarters over the manner
in which the cyber law was used. It had become very clear that this
was a draconian law that directly affected the fundamental right of
freedom of speech granted to Indian citizens under Indian
constitution.
24
year old Ms.Shreya Singhal, a Delhi-based law student, was the first
person to challenge the law in court after the arrest of the Palghar
girls by Maharashtra Police in 2012. Shreya contended that Section
66A goes against the right to free speech as enshrined in India’s
Constitution. Her Public Interest Litigation (PIL) cited the arrests
as evidence that the law, though meant to protect citizens from
defamation, can be used to restrict freedom of expression. Shreya was
followed by 26 others.
The
Supreme Court, in the preliminary hearing, accepted the contention
that the provision was “very widely drafted”, and gave arbitrary
powers to police officers . After this, the central government issued
a set of guidelines in January 2013, intended to prevent misuse of
the provision. . The petitioners however, maintained that the
guidelines can not redeem an unconstitutional provision.
The
final judgment came on 23rd March 2015, where the Supreme
Court declared Section 66A of Information Technology Act as
unconstitutional and struck it down. It rightly said that such a law
hit at the root of liberty and freedom of expression, the two
cardinal pillars of democracy.
Section
66A now being history, question comes, how the law will now deal with
miscreants, who want to use electronic media to trouble or harass
others. A cyber culprit can still be sentenced under similar
provisions of the IT Act (section 67), Sections 506, 509 of IPC and
state-enacted provisions that criminalize harassment.
27th
March 2015
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