-The Tribune The Centre on Wednesday advised the states and Union Territories (UTs) to direct police stations in their respective jurisdictions to “immediately withdraw the cases registered under the repealed-Section 66A of the Information Technology Act”. The directive came days after the Supreme Court expressed shock that the law was being invoked even six years after it was struck down by the apex court. In its advisory, the Union Ministry of Home...
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Panel to define offences of speech, expression -Vijaita Singh
-The Hindu The committee constituted by Home Ministry on reforms to the IPC may propose a separate Section A panel constituted by the Union Home Ministry to suggest reforms to the British-era Indian Penal Code (IPC) is likely to propose a separate Section on “offences relating to speech and expression.” As there is no clear definition of what constitutes a “hate speech” in the IPC, the Committee for Reforms in Criminal Laws is...
More »Dishonouring the verdict -Apar Gupta and Abhinav Sekhri
-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...
More »Centre plans law on online hate speech -Vijaita Singh
-The Hindu Law Commission asked to make draft Moving a step ahead towards framing a distinct law for online “hate speech,” the Home Ministry has written to the Law Commission to prepare a draft law. The provisions will deal with offensive messages sent through social media and online messaging applications. The decision came after a committee headed by former Lok Sabha Secretary General T.K. Viswanathan submitted a report recommending stricter laws to curb...
More »Delete it
-The Hindu Business Line Article 66A of the Information Technology Act has no place in a free and democratic society If everybody who ever offended anybody - intentionally or otherwise - is to be locked up, then half the country would be behind bars. It is astonishing, therefore, that provisions in the law which mandate precisely such an outcome for offending someone - without, moreover, even defining what exactly is meant by...
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