Final hearing in petitions challenging validity of certain provisions of the IT Act gets underway in the Supreme Court; hearing to resume on Wednesday

Final hearing in the batch of petitions assailing the constitutionality of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act got underway before a Bench of the Supreme Court comprising of Justices J. Chelameswar and S A Bobde.

 

Supreme Court of India

During the course of hearing, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta admitted before the Supreme Court that in most of the incidents cited in the petitions filed challenging the constitutional validity of Section 66A of the IT Act, the power was abused. He submitted that the abuse of power in certain cases was “evident” and that the Centre did not seek to justify the incidents where whimsical arrests were made. He added that action had been taken against the erring police officers.

The list of incidents included arrest of two girls in Maharashtra by Thane Police in 2012 over a Facebook post, arrest of Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra for forwarding caricature on Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Facebook, arrest of Aseem Trivedi for drawing cartoons lampooning Parliament and the Constitution to depict their ineffectiveness.

One among the petitions being heard now before the Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and S.A. Bobde has been filed by a law student Shreya Singhal who has challenged the validity of section 66A of the Act.

Shreya had filed the PIL after two girls--Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Shrinivasan--were arrested in Palghar in Thane district under section 66A of IT Act after one of them posted a comment against the shut down in Mumbai following Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray's death and the other 'liked' it. Subsequently, NGO’s Common Cause and People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) also impleaded themselves in the matter.

Shreya Singhal had contended in her petition that “phraseology of the aforesaid section (Section 66A) is so wide and vague and incapable of being judged on objective standards, that it is susceptible to wanton abuse” Senior counsel Soli Sorabjee, appearing for Singhal, told the court that section 66A is unconstitutional as it violates the constitution's article 19(1)(a) guaranteeing fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression.

Prashant Bhushan, appearing for ‘Common Cause’ also said that expression used in section 66A were vague and are grossly abused by those in power and cited instances to back up his plea.

As the final arguments on the petitions began, the Bench sought to know if the provisions in the IPC were not adequate to deal with the offences arising out of electronic messages and hence Section 66A was drafted in the IT Act.

Senior advocate Soli Sorabjee, Prashant Bhushan and Sanjay Parikh, appearing for the petitioners, replied that not only were the IPC provisions enough, they were better drafted and explained the circumstances when the alleged offences could be attracted. This, they contended, was not the case in Section 66A which was vague and left it to the subjective discretion of the police to decide when to arrest.

The Bench will resume hearing the case on Wednesday.