The Supreme Court docket Wednesday directed no citizen could be prosecuted underneath part 66A of the Info Expertise Act, 2000, which it had scrapped approach again in 2015.
Beneath the annulled part, an individual posting offensive content material might be imprisoned for as much as three years and likewise fined.
Underlining that liberty of thought and expression is of “cardinal” significance, the highest courtroom had on March 24, 2015 performed away with the availability, saying “the general public’s proper to know is immediately affected by Part 66A of the Info Expertise Act”.
A bench headed by Chief Justice U U Lalit mentioned in all instances the place residents are going through prosecution for alleged violation of part 66-A of the Act, the reference and reliance upon the mentioned provision shall stand deleted.
“We direct all Director Basic of Police in addition to House Secretaries of the states and competent officers in Union Territories to instruct your entire police power of their respective states/Union Territories to not register any grievance of crime with respect to alleged violation of part 66A,” mentioned the bench, additionally comprising Justices Ajay Rastogi and S R Bhat.
The highest courtroom clarified that this path shall apply solely with respect to offence punishable underneath part 66A, and if within the crime in query, different offences are additionally alleged, then the reference and reliance upon part 66A alone shall be deleted.
The bench noticed the counsel showing for the Centre has positioned on report an all-India standing report with regard to pending instances underneath part 66A.
It noticed the data given in a tabular type does counsel that regardless of the problem concerning the validity of part 66A of the Act having been determined by the apex courtroom, plenty of legal proceedings nonetheless depend on this provision and residents are nonetheless going through prosecution.
“Such legal proceedings, in our view, are immediately within the enamel of the instructions issued by this courtroom in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India (March 2015 judgement) and consequently, we problem following instructions….,” the bench mentioned. “It wants no reiteration that part 66A of the 2000 Act has been discovered by this courtroom in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India to be violative of the Structure and as such, no citizen could be prosecuted ….in mentioned part 66A,” it mentioned.
The bench additionally mentioned every time any publication, whether or not authorities, semi-government and personal, in regards to the IT Act is revealed and part 66A is quoted as a part of the statute e-book, the reader should adequately be told that part 66A has already been pronounced upon by the apex courtroom to be violative of the Structure.
Calling a “matter of great concern” the registration of FIRs underneath part 66A of the Act which was scrapped in 2015, the apex courtroom had final month requested the chief secretaries of the states involved to take again the instances inside three weeks.
The bench was listening to a miscellaneous utility of NGO ‘Folks’s Union for Civil Liberties’ (PUCL) alleging prosecution of individuals underneath the scrapped provision.
The NGO claimed that regardless of categorical instructions of the courtroom in 2019 that each one state governments sensitise police personnel in regards to the March 24, 2015 judgement, hundreds of instances have been registered underneath the part.
It sought path to the Centre to gather all information/ info concerning FIRs/investigations the place part 66A has been invoked in addition to pendency of instances within the courts all through the nation the place proceedings underneath the availability are persevering with in violation of the 2015 judgment.
On February 15, 2019, the highest courtroom had directed all state governments to sensitise their police personnel about its March 24, 2015 verdict, which had scrapped part 66A of the Act, so persons are not unnecessarily arrested underneath the struck-down provision.
The primary PIL on the problem was filed in 2012 by regulation pupil Shreya Singhal who sought an modification to part 66A of the Act after two women – Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Shrinivasan – have been arrested in Palghar in Maharashtra’s Thane district.
Whereas one had posted a remark towards the shutdown in Mumbai following Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s demise, the opposite had ‘preferred’ it.
PUCL was additionally one of many petitioners within the earlier case and had challenged the constitutional validity of Part 66A of the Act.