04-08-2021 | 15:40 PM
Section 66A of IT Act
• Recently, The Supreme Court (SC) has expressed shock that the provision was still being used to book people, though SC held it as unconstitutional and a violation of free speech in the Shreya Singhal judgment, 2015.
• Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) also asked states and UTs to sensitise law enforcement agencies for compliance of order issued by Supreme Court on March 24, 2015.
• Section 66A of IT Act empowered police to make arrests over what policemen, in terms of their subjective discretion, could construe as “offensive” or “menacing” or for the purposes of causing annoyance, inconvenience, etc.
• It prescribed the punishment for sending messages through a computer or any other communication device like a mobile phone or a tablet, and a conviction could fetch a maximum of three years in jail.
