In a landmark judgment on the Right to Freedom of Speech on the Internet, the Supreme Court on Tuesday quashed Section 66A of the Information Technology Act that empowers the police to make arrests over contentious social media posts. It ruled that the law violate people’s fundamental right to speech and expression.
READ: Everything you need to know about Section 66A
A bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Rohinton F Nariman held the provision to be “unconstitutional” and said it had to be struck down in its entirety. The bench said the provision had no proximate relationship with the public order and lacked defined criteria on its exercise
It said that Section 66A adversely impacted people’s right to know and didn’t make any distinction between advocacy, discussion on one hand and incitement on the other. It rejected the Centre’s plea that the Section could be read down and that the authorities will make sure the law is administered well.
“Government may come and government may go but Section 66A will always remain on the statute…whatever is otherwise invalid cannot be held to be valid by making a statement that it will be administered well,” said the bench.
The court held that Section 66A could not be seen as a “reasonable restriction” on an individual’s right to speech and expression.
The bench however upheld the provisions and the guidelines making intermediaries liable for removing objectionable content on being notified by the government
No comments:
Post a Comment