{"id":119128,"date":"2021-07-16T18:24:59","date_gmt":"2021-07-16T12:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=119128"},"modified":"2021-07-20T16:57:15","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T11:27:15","slug":"ghost-of-section-66a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/ghost-of-section-66a\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghost of Section 66A"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/editorials\/section-66a-information-technology-act-unconstitutional-supreme-court-7406746\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Indian Express<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>: \u00a0Laws that are declared unconstitutional by the judiciary, are still in use. Policy measures are required to ensure the proper implementation of orders.<\/p>\n<h5><b>Synopsis<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Supreme Court\u2019s criticism and the Centre&#8217;s note underline the letter of Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act. Now the challenge is to implement it in spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Background<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more<\/strong> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/disable-unconstitutional-sections\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Disable unconstitutional sections<\/a><\/p>\n<h5><b>About Section 66A<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was introduced as an amendment to the Information Technology Act in 2008.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It gave the government power to arrest and imprison an individual for allegedly \u201coffensive and menacing\u201d online posts.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>Why was it struck down?<\/b><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The SC in the Shreya Singhal Case deduced that Section 66A was arbitrarily, excessively, and disproportionately invades the right of free speech.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was drafted so widely that virtually any opinion on any subject would be covered by it. Thus, upholding its validity would create a chilling effect on free speech in the country.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>Reasons behind continued persecutions under Section 66A<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The gap between the court\u2019s judgment and the pile of Section 66A cases is, perhaps, explained by a political climate. Free speech, dissent, and legitimate criticism are being seen in bad faith.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Further, the existing laws are wielded as weapons to arrest journalists and citizens for a tweet or a slogan, or a Facebook post.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>Suggestions<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Early this month, the Supreme Court bench hearing the plea was moved to seek a response from the Centre on what it called a <\/span><b>\u201cshocking state of affairs\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Centre has written to state governments, asking them to<\/span><b> pass on the memo to the police force and withdraw all cases under Section 66A. <\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Centre\u2019s note to the states is a positive step, but<b>\u00a0regular monitoring is the only way to ensure that the law is implemented in letter and spirit.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Indian Express\u00a0 Relevance: \u00a0Laws that are declared unconstitutional by the judiciary, are still in use. Policy measures are required to ensure the proper implementation of orders. Synopsis: The Supreme Court\u2019s criticism and the Centre&#8217;s note underline the letter of Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act. Now the challenge is to implement it&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/ghost-of-section-66a\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Ghost of Section 66A<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10322,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[8425,212,225,8426],"class_list":["post-119128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-ghost-of-section-66a","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-polity","tag-section-66a","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":1700770609,"cached_date":1704812762},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10322"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}