Why Are People Being Arrested Under Scrapped Section 66A?: SC Rebukes Modi Govt
The bench said that concerned officials would be arrested if the court’s 2015 order scrapping section 66A was violated.
The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Narendra Modi-led central government’s response on a plea stating that prosecutions were taking place even after the apex court had scrapped Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, under which a person could be arrested for posting allegedly offensive content on websites.
A bench headed by Justice RF Nariman said concerned officials would be arrested and sent to jail if the apex court order of March 24, 2015, scrapping the provision of the IT Act, is violated.
Appearing for the NGO People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), advocate Sanjay Parikh said more than 22 people had been arrested under the provision of the IT Act scrapped by the top court in 2015.
The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) — a civil liberties non-profit working on technology and fundamental rights — also said that despite Section 66A which was routinely abused to prosecute people for online posts was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in March 2015, an empirical study is conducted by them in October showed that fresh 66A cases were still being registered.
Apar Gupta, the executive director of the IFF, said that the miscellaneous application filed by PUCL was based off a study published by them in October 2018 called “Section 66A and other legal zombies“. In the study — conducting advanced searches over IndianKanoon and Supreme Court Cases Online — they found 48 cases where Section 66A was used, post the court’s decision in 2015.
Expressing hope on the matter, Gupta said that more media reportage on the apex court’s response would help prevent any further Section 66A proceedings adding that, “This is an unconstitutional provision — no past, present or future 66A should exist in the criminal justice system.”
In 2015, Section 66A was declared unconstitutional in its entirety by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v Union of India. The apex court struck down the “draconian” provision that had led to the arrests of many people for posting content deemed to be “allegedly objectionable” on the internet. This meant that all Section 66A cases — old ones, existing ones, and fresh ones — would stop.
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