 "Social Media")
A recently released report of the National Crime Records Bureau suggests that the police in various states are openly flouting the Supreme Court’s direction scrapping Section 66(A) of the IT Act and are arresting people under the now defunct law. The report said 3,133 people were arrested under this section in 2015.
In March 2015, the Supreme Court quashed Section 66(A) of the IT Act, which allowed the state police to arrest a person for posting any “objectionable content” on the internet. The section was allegedly being misused by authorities against those who allegedly criticised or defamed the state, the Central government, or politicians on social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
The court upheld the right of freedom of speech and expression of citizens. “It is clear that Section 66A arbitrarily, excessively and disproportionately invades the right of free speech and upsets the balance between such right and the reasonable restrictions that may be imposed on such right,” said a Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and Rohinton F. Nariman, scrapping Section 66(A) of the IT Act which carried a maximum punishment of three years in jail.
The NCRB report findings mean two things: either all the 3,133 arrests were made before March 24 when the apex court had struck down the section or the police had continued arresting people throughout the year.
The first possibility seems unlikely given the record of arrest made in 2014. The police forces across the country had arrested a total of 2,423 people throughout the year of 2014. (Article continues after box)
(Source: The Centre for Internet and Society)
(Source: The Centre for Internet and Society)
“The cases under IT Act are the least priority of any state police. It is almost impossible that they had arrested 3,331 people in the first three months of 2015,” says cyber lawyer Pawan Duggal.
“The experience so far has been that cases under section 66 A were registered at the behest of influential people or and also with the knowledge of senior police officers. The police officers cannot take the excuse that they were not aware of the SC March 24 directions. It is inexplicable. The SC must held them for contempt and release all the arrested people,” Duggal adds.
Prakash Singh, former director general of police Uttar Pradesh, says it is the responsibility of the state government to inform its police head about such SC directions. The police chief must inform his subordinates in districts and police stations.
But this is not the first time when Supreme Court directions have not been implemented. The court’s directions on police reforms passed in 2006 are yet to be fully implemented. “I don’t know why the SC is not serious on holding the states for contempt for not implementing its directions,” Singh, who had filed the petition for police reforms, adds.
A senior police official, working with the Central government, said NCRB might have erred while compiling the report. “If not then it can be safely assumed that such cases and arrests were mainly from the cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. This is even more worrying because officers in the cities are more updated about the SC judgments. It is a serious lapse.”
Business Standard tried to reach the Director General of NCRB to seek his opinion and check if the report was free of error, but his office turned down a request for a telephone interview.
| Under section 66A | Cases reported | Cases pending | Person arrested aged below 18 years | Person arrested aged between 18-30 years | Person arrested aged between 30-45 years | Person arrested aged between 45-60 years | Person arrested aged 60 years and above | Total |
| In 2014 | 4192 | 1196 | 21 | 1217 | 1015 | 166 | 4 | 2423 |
| In 2015 | 4154 | 3525 | 64 | 2075 | 910 | 82 | 2 | 3133 |
