EMERGENCE SCOPE OF SECTION 66A OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACT, 2000

                              

OVERVIEW OF SECTION 66A UNDER INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACT , 2000

REASONS FOR THE ENACTMENT OF SECTION 66A .

• The IT Act was enacted in 2000 when the Internet was still relatively new in India. Social media websites were not that much in the picture. The 66A IT Act 2000 was enacted with the thought to provide to protect cyber crime against women, especially to those who sent ‘ vulgar mobile SMS to women and to comment vulgar and sexual comments on some social media accounts.
• With thought to protect national security by blocking the website which propagates anti-social comments on social media among people
• The Amendment Act came into force with effect on  October 27, 2009.

     WHAT SECTION 66 (A) IMPLICATES

SECTION 66A.   Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc.

 66A. Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc.–Any person who sends, using a computer resource or a communication device,

(a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or

(b) any information which he knows to be false, but to cause annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device;

(c) any e-mail or electronic mail message to cause annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages,

shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with a fine.

Explanation.–For  “electronic mail message” means a message or information created or transmitted or received on a computer, computer system, computer resource or communication device including attachments in text, image, audio, video and any other electronic record, which may be transmitted with the message.

WHY SECTION 66(A) OF I.T. ACT TO HAVE SO MUCH CRITICISM

REASON TO STRIKE DOWN SECTION 66(A) I.T. ACT 2000

•  “Grossly offensive ” all criticism revolves around this term because it does not give any defined meaning of the word what exactly grossly offensive means. Terms like annoying”, “inconvenient” and “grossly offensive”, used in the provision, are vague as it is difficult for the law enforcement agency and the offender to know the ingredients of the offence.

• As it is very difficult to decide what is grossly offensive means, some things may be offensive for someone and not for others. So, this section can be normally misused by people and even by police authorities because of having a vague, ambiguous meaning attached to this term and subject to “wanton abuse” as it conferred subjective powers on the police to interpret Section 66A of the IT Act.

• And the interpretation of the term offensive can vary from one person to another. Which make this provision fragile and open to the endless possibility to interpret. Being open-ended provision make it easy for authorities to reflect their own, thought process on to another statement.

• 66A of the IT Act be violating Articles 19 (right to freedom of speech and expression) and 21 (right to life) as it pronounced a death sentence on the law. It’s restricted the people freedom of expression and speech. And also stops the public to have constructive criticism about something or some political parties and political authority. It snatches the right of the people to express their opinions on social media platforms just because it is offensive for some parties.

• Section 66A created an offence based on undefined actions such as causing “inconvenience, danger, obstruction and insult”.These actions were not mentioned as exceptions granted under Article 19 and did not qualify for reasonable restrictions mentioned in the Constitution.

SECTIONS THAT CAN HAVE THE SAME EFFECT LIKE SECTION 66(A) I.T. ACT 2000.

• Intentionally Insulting Religion Or Religious Beliefs (section 295A)
• Promoting Enmity Between Groups On Grounds Of Religion, Race Etc. (section 153A)
• Intentionally Insulting Religious Beliefs Of Any Person (section 298)
• Defamation (sections 499 & 500)
• Statements conducing to Public Mischief (section 505)
• Insulting The Modesty Of A Woman (section 509)
• Criminal Intimidation (sections 506 & 507)
• Sedition (section 124-A), etc.

The above section of IPC, Crpc and 66A act can strengthen the provide for stricter punishment for spreading hatred and for using cyberspace to spread hatred and harassment.

But provide prompt power to police authorities to have prompt action before even analysing the situation.

LANDMARK JUDGEMENT RELATED TO SECTION 66(A) I.T. ACT, 2000

Shreya Singhal v. UOI (2015)

The case which urges  the judiciary to look into the provision On March 24, 2015, a bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and R.F. Nariman ruled in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India declared Section 66A unconstitutional for “being violative of Article 19(1)(a) and not saved under Article 19(2).”

Article 19(1)(a) gives people the right to speech and expression whereas 19(2) accords the state the power to impose “reasonable restrictions”.

And calling it “open-ended and unconstitutionally vague”, and thus expanded the contours of free speech to the Internet.

The court held that Section 66A is capable of limiting all forms of internet communication as it makes no distinction between mere discussion or advocacy of a particular point of view which leads to a causal connection between public disorder and the security of the State. By concluding the case the Supreme Court declared Section 66A of the Act as unconstitutional.

THERE ARE SOME OF CASES RELATED TO MISUSE OF SECTION 66(A) I.T. ACT

1. March 19, 2015: UP Police arrested a Class XI student in Rampur for making offensive remarks against Uttar Pradesh Minister Azam Khan on Facebook.

2 . October 2014: Andhra Pradesh CID arrested a student for posting on social media that the cyclone Hudhud was good as it was nature’s way of punishing those who did not vote for the YSR Congress Party.

3. December  2014: Kerala Police arrested Salman, a college student on charges of sedition for allegedly changing some words of an undisclosed patriotic song with abuses in a Facebook post.

4. May 12, 2014: Remarks on Prime Minister-to-be Narendra Modi on Facebook led to the filing of an FIR on Goa ship-building professional Devu Chodankar.

5. August 5, 2014: “Abusive” comments about PM Narendra Modi on Facebook resulted in the arrest of CPI-M worker Rajeesh Kumar in Kerala.

CASES AFTER STRUCK DOWN OF 66(A) I.T. ACT

• It has been many years since this section was struck down by the Supreme Court of India but still, police are arresting people under this provision. Even being proclaimed an unconstitutional law this provision has an afterlife effect on people’s freedom.

1. In March 2017, an 18-year-old boy named Zakir Ali Tyagi from Muzaffarpur, Uttar Pradesh was arrested under Section 66A of the Act for posting a comment on UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

2 . A chemistry professor of Jadavpur University was arrested under Section 66A of the Act in 2012. The trial is still going on and charges under all other provisions are dropped out.

3. In October 2018, Veeramreddy was arrested under Section 66A of the Act in Andhra Pradesh.

4 . In May 2019, BJP worker Priyanka Sharma was arrested and remanded to judicial custody. Section 66A of the Act was also imposed on her with certain other charges. The Supreme Court intervened in the matter and ensured her immediate release.   

 CONCLUSION

Being in the 21st century where information is shared among people within seconds on social media or news still lower judiciary and police authorities are not aware that 66A IT Act 2000 has been repealed by the Supreme Court in 2015 in the Shreya Singhal case. People are still been booked under replead section 66A of the act. After seeing this situation it becomes important to make the government aware of new provisions which are enacted in any act and replead section of the provision for the betterment of the society as this section is being used after being repleaded by the Supreme Court. There is an urgent need for adopting a better way to make this law enforcement agency keep them updated with the penal provision and not in the form of a footnote. To emphasise more to keep police stations and officers to follow new guidelines which are given by Supreme Court. And also lower courts are not aware of this replead section which is ultimately disrespecting Supreme Court judgement as according to article 141 of the Indian Constitution Supreme Court judgement is bidding on lower courts.

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