Drop cases filed under Section 66A: Centre

Context:

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) asked the States and Union Territories to immediately withdraw the cases registered under the repealed-Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, days after the Supreme Court expressed shock that it was being invoked even six years after the apex court had struck it down.

Relevance:

GS-II: Polity and Governance (Judiciary, Important Judgements & Cases Judiciary, Fundamental Rights)

Dimensions of the Article:

1. What is the Information Technology (IT) Act?
2. Section 66A of IT Act – Struck down

What is the Information Technology (IT) Act?

• The Information Technology Act, 2000 is the primary law in India dealing with cybercrime and electronic commerce.
• The laws apply to the whole of India. If a crime involves a computer or network located in India, persons of other nationalities can also be indicted under the law.
• The Aim of the Act was to provide legal infrastructure for e-commerce in India.
• The Information Technology Act, 2000 also aims to provide for the legal framework so that legal sanctity is accorded to all electronic records and other activities carried out by electronic means.
• It also defines cyber-crimes and prescribes penalties for them.

Section 66A of IT Act – Struck down

• Section 66A of the IT Act has been enacted to regulate the social media law India and assumes importance as it controls and regulates all the legal issues related to social media law India.
• This section clearly restricts the transmission, posting of messages, mails, comments which can be offensive or unwarranted.
• The offending message can be in form of text, image, audio, video or any other electronic record which is capable of being transmitted.
• In the current scenarios such sweeping powers under the IT Act provides a tool in the hands of the Government to curb the misuse of the Social Media Law India in any form.
• However, in 2015, in a landmark judgment upholding the right to free speech in recent times, the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal and Ors. Vs Union of India, struck down Section 66A of the Information & Technology Act, 2000.
• The judgment had found that Section 66A was contrary to both Articles 19 (free speech) and 21 (right to life) of the Constitution.
• The repeal of 66A does not however result in an unrestricted right to free speech since analogous provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) will continue to apply to social media online.

-Source: The Hindu