The Supreme Court on Monday released a notice to the Center regarding the use of Section 66A of the IT Act, which was abolished a few years ago, stating that it is shocking that the ruling to repeal the law has not been implemented to date.
The announcement came during the hearing of a plea by PUCL, in which it was indicated that even after 7 years of abolition of the law from March 2021, a total of 745 cases are still pending and active in the district courts in 11 states. whereby the defendants are prosecuted for criminal offenses under Section 66A of the IT Act.
The plea is based on data collected by the Internet Freedom Foundation, which is pursuing “zombie regulation” cases that have been invalidated but are still being used by police to track people.
It shows that even after March 2015, following the Shreya Singhal ruling that repealed Section 66A, 1,307 cases have been registered under the law.
The Attorney General of India, KK Venugopal, told the Supreme Court on Monday that the “statutes” books still contain Section 66A of the IT Act, which has been dismissed as unconstitutional.
“When your lordships see the IT code, there is just a little asterisk and a footnote that says it was deleted by order of the Supreme Court. Nobody reads the footnote,” Venugopal said.
He went on to add that “the section itself must read ‘Struck down by the Supreme Court’ and the old text could be in the footnote” so that police officers are not “confused”.
“This is shocking,” noted the bank, headed by Judge RF Nariman. “Implementation is a problem. You have read my disagreement on the Sabarimala case, ”commented Judge Nariman.
Section 66A of the IT Act was used to punish online communication that is viewed as “grossly offensive, threatening” or to send messages that the sender knows are “false, to cause annoyance, inconvenience, danger , Obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, hostility, hatred, or malice. ” The provision was overturned by the Supreme Court on March 24, 2015.
The court found in its 2015 judgment that the provision was “vague and arbitrary”.
The NGO’s plea, via the NCRB or another authority, requested court orders to the center to “collect all data / information about FIRs / investigations in which Section 66A was invoked, as well as about the pending of cases in the courts ( District Courts / High Courts). ) in the whole country in which the procedure according to § 66A is continued contrary to the judgment “.
The plea said that since the 2015 Supreme Court ruling, 381 cases have been recorded in Maharashtra, 295 in Jharkhand and 245 in UP.
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