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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Dishonouring the verdict -Apar Gupta and Abhinav Sekhri

Dishonouring the verdict -Apar Gupta and Abhinav Sekhri

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published Published on Feb 25, 2019   modified Modified on Feb 25, 2019
-The Indian Express

On the ground, SC ruling on Section 66A is frequently violated.

In October 2018, we published a small study revealing how Section 66-A of the Information Technology Act 2000 [“IT Act”] continued to be used to prosecute persons despite being struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in Shreya Singhal (2015). We suggested that this afterlife was not merely wanton exercise of power by the police but symptomatic of a deeper malaise. Since declarations of unconstitutionality do not wipe out a provision from the statute book, it meant something more had to be done to ensure people know the provision is no longer valid. But we found that there were no systems in place to ensure that the news of judicial decisions reached all corners of the state machinery. Such signal failures between the judiciary and executive made it likely that news of a penal provision being struck down by the SC was not reaching the many police stations.

Based on our report, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties — one of the petitioners in the litigation that led to the provision being struck down — took 66-A back to the SC. Directions were sought for compliance with Shreya Singhal. Information was sought from the government on how many 66-A cases had been filed after it had been exorcised.

When the case came up for the first hearing in January, the bench was furious, promising strict action if in fact fresh cases had been filed after the Shreya Singhal judgment. On February 15, at the second hearing, the attorney general appeared to support a counter-affidavit filed by the Union of India. It showed that after the last hearing, the Union took steps to supply the publicity deficit which we had identified. It had written to states/union territories (UTs) reminding them about 66-A being struck down and sought data on pending cases, if any.

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The Indian Express, 25 January, 2019, https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/section-66a-information-technology-act-supreme-court-shreya-singhal-judgment-5599263/


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