Exploring Contemporary Issues Surrounding Section 66A of The IT Act 2000 In India

                   Exploring Contemporary Issues Surrounding Section 66A of the IT Act 2000 in India the Supreme Court of India
                                                                                            By- Sudhanshu Pramod


Reiterated that no one should be prosecuted under section 66A of the information technology Act of 2000 which was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court back in 2015 in the Shreya singhal case pertinently the Supreme Court today issued a slew of directions to the director generals of police and home secretaries of all states to ensure that reference to section 66A is removed from all pending cases the court also directed that the bare acts of the I.T act be published so that adequately the readers could be informed that section 66A has been invalidated by the Supreme Court essentially the bench comprising Chiefs us of India lalit Justice s ravinder Bhatt and Justice Ajay rastogi was hearing a rich petition filed by the NGO PUCL that is the people's Union for civil liberties which highlighted issue of section 66A of the it act being invoked despite the Judgment of the Supreme Court in the case title shriya singhal versus Union of India PUCL had approached the Supreme Court with the assistance of the Internet Freedom Foundation, stipulating that the Union of India, instead of implementing the Supreme Court judgment, shocked its responsibility by pleading that the responsibility of implementation lied with the states as well as law enforcement agencies. During the last hearings in this matter, the Supreme Court asked the union government to get in touch with the chief secretaries of the states where firs under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act continued to be registered despite the provision being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2015.

The Supreme Court had asked the union to impress upon such states to take remedial measures as soon as possible to curb such usage of the provision today during the hearing Hussain appearing for the union of India placed an all India status report with regards to complaints under section 66A of the it act the Supreme Court noted that the information provided by Advocate Hussein suggested that despite the issue regarding the validity of section 66A being dealt with in the Shreya single versus Union of India judgment a number of crimes and criminal proceedings still reflected on the provision of section 66A of the act and that citizens was still facing prosecution under this particular provision the bench also took into consideration the gravity of the matter and stated during the hearing that such proceedings are directly infringing directions under the Shreya single judgment thus the court went on to issue the following directions today which are as follows and I quote here number one it needs no reiteration that section 66a is found to be in violation of the Constitution and as such no citizen can be prosecuted for violation of alleged offenses under section 66a of the it act number 2 in all cases where citizens are facing prosecution for violations of section 66A the reference and Reliance upon section 66a from all crimes shall stand deleted Number three, we direct all director generals of police home secretaries and competent officers in states and union territories to direct the entire police force not to register any complaint with respect to a violation of Section 66A.

This direction shall apply only with reference to Section 66A. If the crime has other facets where other offenses are also alleged, those shall not be deleted. Number four: whenever any publication where the government semi-government or private about it Act is published and Section 66A is quoted, readers must be adequately informed that the provisions of Section 66A have been pronounced upon by this court to be violative of the  Constitution of India. Keep watching live law for more such updates.