This article is written by Ayush Agarwal, a student of UPES, Dehradun.

Celebrations mainly among the social networking tweets were at peak with the Supreme Court striking of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act. Hang on, restrictions still exists, 66A is a history now. There are many other similar provisions in the Indian Penal Code that could restrict and could be responsible for your arrest for posting offensive comment online on any of the sites. 66A was just a tool to put charges.

The reason which Supreme Court gave while quashing Section 66A was that it the section makes no distinction on whether communication has any impact on public order. Things that are offensive to one may not be offensive to another and what may or may not be annoying to one, could be annoying to another. The reasons cited above rendered 66A unconstitutional and vague.

Due to the response of disapproval over the arrest of two girls in Palghar, Kapil Sibal, ex-IT minister, issued in the form of advisory to all the state governments that no arrest under Section 66A could be made by the police unless the concerned Superintendent of Police will issue an written order.

Concluding to what Kapil Sibal has said, in most of the cases where a person is arrested for posting indiscrete content on social networking sites, the police under the written order has invoked section 153 and 505 of the Indian Penal Code along with Section 66A of IT act, the offence was a bailable offence. Only by invoking these two additions sections with the 66A had allowed the police to arrest those persons. Section 153 and 153A provides for registration of a case against a person who gives a statement either in writing or orally that indicates communal rights or provokes communal tension and enmity between communities. IT was punishable with imprisonment from period extending between six months to one year with fine. Section 505 punishes persons who spread rumor through their statement to cause public order with an imprisonment up to 3 years.

Section 69A- Upheld in its entirety

Section 69A grants power to the government to issue directions for blocking for public access of any information through any computer resource. Under this Section, the Central government or any of its officers specially authorized for the task can block any website, interned services or content from public access, if he is convinced that there is logicality in doing that task. Government has power or order website block, if the government with the compulsion of doing it. The government has to go about blocking procedure set out in the Blocking rules, which were notified on in October 2009.

The common reasons where websites are blocked are, if it poses a threat to sovereignty and integrity of India, defense of India, Security of the state, friendly relations with foreign state, public order, preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to above.

Section 79(3)

According to Section 79(3), if the person filing the matter in the court feels that an intermediary is not censoring content and some part of the content is highly objectionable and the content should be taken down, the person can seeks court’s approval. The intermediary can take down the objectionable content once the court order had been issued to the person of if the government under the specified condition orders to do so.

In the interim, the bench which quashed section 66A has included Article 19(2) of the constitution. The judgement read, there are “three aspects of freedom of expression: discussion, advocacy and incitement. Only when discussion and advocacy reach the level of incitement, is Article 19 (2) (of the Constitution of India), which puts reasonable restrictions on freedom of speech, applicable. This actually means that the state can put ‘reasonable restrictions’ on our freedom of speech.

Conclusion

The best part of a democratic country like India is that we have freedom to express with minimal objection. Freedom of Speech and Expression is not an absolute freedom. If freedom becomes absolute then the egos will clash and the world will again turn into a battle field. If ones want to express his thought, he can do without making it come under the definition of objectionable content. The Apex court serves its part by citing the obsolete clause of Section 66A to be constitutional but with that the Supreme Court issued a warning that the Freedom should not be used to bring out the grudges, it should be used to communicate and make India a welfare state. Still the country is free with the Law prevailing over the evil intentions of the persons and putting all the reasonable restriction of the people and to persons who break it at large.