In a milestone judgment, the Supreme Court of India has termed Section 66A of the IT ACT as draconian, unconstitutional and unsustainable. The court maintained that it was a violation to free speech, a breach of the fundamental right granted to us citizens by the Constitution of India. Section 66 A was added to the Information Technology Act 2000 in 2008 and it imposed punishment for sending offensive messages through electronic communication services or the internet.
While the primary interest was to prevent slandering and abusing online, the Act turned out to be a tool to crush public voice & opinion and even harmless humour by state governments and establish terror and force their superiority amongst the masses.
This has been evident as in the case of the arrest of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, who was arrested in Mumbai 2011 on charges of sedition for his political cartoons via his anti-corruption movement India Against Corruption at the MMRDA grounds, when his website was suspended by Crime Branch, Mumbai.
Aseem Trivedi
In 2012, in Jadavpur University too, Professor Ambikesh Mahapatra found himself slapped with the draconian Section 66 A for sharing a comic strip which Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal did not find amusing. The atrocities followed in 2014 as well, when Devu Chodankar, a young executive was charged under 66A for a Facebook post on Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi. Most recently, a Class 11 student from Bareilly was remanded in judicial custody for a Facebook post against UP Minister Azam Khan, which the Rampur district police found derogatory.
Prof. Ambikesh Mahapatra
Prof. Ambikesh Mahapatra's cartoon that landed him in jail.
Devu Chodankar
The police show surprising alacrity in implementing Section 66 A against harmless citizens, taking it to a level bordering communal violence. In other words, Section 66 A has been a weapon of the police and state governments to arrest anybody on anything that is subjectively, seemingly annoying to them. It has come to a point when we, as citizens have to compromise our democratic rights of our freedom for speech and expression.
The credit for repeal of Section 66 A goes to Shreya Singhal, a 24 year old second year student of Law School at Delhi University’s Faculty of Law, who was the first to file a petition against this regressive and opportunist law. Her petition was drafted by laywers Ninad Laud and Ranjita Rohtagi and argued by former Attorney General Soli Sorabjee. This iconic case itself is titled “Shreya Singhal versus Union of India” has created history and given a new direction to freedom of speech online in India.
Shreya Singhal
As the future of India, we should strive to voice, display, comment on any injustice being meted out to us as citizens especially by the government and police, our protectors, so to say. When all fails, we need to rise, brothers-in-arms to fight the army of extremely opportunist leaders, in power. Debates and discussions are good and public opinion is a sure shot way to gauge what the country’s brains are thinking, which should be taken as popular feedback to make India an even greater nation.
Sure, it’s a long shot, but imagine the difference it will make in our lives and in the lives of the future generations!