{"id":70842,"date":"2020-11-24T17:43:11","date_gmt":"2020-11-24T12:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=70842"},"modified":"2021-05-10T17:41:13","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T12:11:13","slug":"keralas-new-118a-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/keralas-new-118a-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerala\u2019s new 118A law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Context \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0The Kerala cabinet recommended to the Governor the promulgation of the ordinance to insert\u00a0Section 118 (A)\u00a0into the Act.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>What is <a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/keralas-new-118a-law\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kerala\u2019s new 118A law<\/a>?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The new Section 118A has been introduced in the Kerala Police Act, 2011.<\/p>\n<p><strong>According to the new law<\/strong>\u2013 The\u00a0state government recommendation to amend the police act\u00a0says that if the government finds any media platform including social media producing, publishing or propagating content that could threaten, insult or harm an individual<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The amendment proposes three years in prison and a fine of up to \u20b9 10,000 for those found guilty.<\/li>\n<li>The state officials said this would give law enforcers more teeth to prosecute the guilty, media houses said the law could be used to gag them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why the law being criticized?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>The threat to free speech<\/strong>\u2013 It is being seen as\u00a0an attempt to stifle not only dissent but also freedom of speech and expression.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2015, the Supreme Court in the\u00a0\u00a0<strong>Shreya Singhal case<\/strong>\u00a0had struck down\u00a0Section 66A of the Information Technology Act\u00a0and Section 118D of the Kerala Police Act, finding both provisions unconstitutionally vague and thus violative of free speech rights. [Article 19].<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li><strong>Vulnerable to misuse<\/strong>\u2013 The law is\u00a0unspecific and indistinct and can be indiscriminately misused by individuals or even the government and the police.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Granted the police untrammelled authority<\/strong>\u2013 It empowers police to suo motu interpret and deal with \u201coffensive\u201d communication and make arrests without a warrant.<\/li>\n<li>Though the Kerala\u00a0government claims it is to fight cyber-crimes against women, that has not found any mention in the law either.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The amendment would reverse the course of media freedom, muzzle free speech and undermine civil liberties.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The greatest danger of such legislation is that if the Ordinance is not withdrawn by the Kerala government, it will act as an example to other states to frame similar laws of their own.<br \/>\n<hr \/>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"DfrsggmBcl\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/misuse-of-ordinance-making-power\/\">Misuse of Ordinance Making Power<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Misuse of Ordinance Making Power&#8221; &#8212; Free UPSC IAS Preparation For Aspirants\" src=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/misuse-of-ordinance-making-power\/embed\/#?secret=aUvqhWZX43#?secret=DfrsggmBcl\" data-secret=\"DfrsggmBcl\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context \u2013\u00a0The Kerala cabinet recommended to the Governor the promulgation of the ordinance to insert\u00a0Section 118 (A)\u00a0into the Act. What is Kerala\u2019s new 118A law? The new Section 118A has been introduced in the Kerala Police Act, 2011. According to the new law\u2013 The\u00a0state government recommendation to amend the police act\u00a0says that if the government&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/keralas-new-118a-law\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Kerala\u2019s new 118A law<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":72285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,8043,1351,1310],"tags":[1301],"class_list":["post-70842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-current-affairs-cat","category-daily-news","category-daily-news-updates","tag-po_3","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Keralas-new-118A-law.jpg?fit=1200%2C628&ssl=1","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":1700778425,"cached_date":1704762998},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70842","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\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}