RIP Section 66A, Supreme Court Terms It Unconstitutional. Long Live Free Speech

Slowly, but gradually, a scenario was developing in India where online citizens were becoming afraid of sharing their opinions and views. People were being arrested due to Facebook posts and blogs, simply because their world view was different from the politician’s or police’s worldview.

In a landmark decision made by Supreme Court today, Section 66A of Information Technology Act, which was used to arrest people for sharing content online, has been scraped and termed as “unconstitutional” by the apex body.

Several victims of this draconian law had been subjected to torture and arrests in the last few years, and they had petitioned their case in the Supreme Court, challenging it’s operative. The first PIL was filed by Shreya Singhal, after two young girls were arrested by Mumbai police in 2012 for posting critical comments on Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray’s death. After that several NGOs, individuals and writers had joined the movement.

A bench of justices J. Chelameswar and R.F. Nariman from Supreme Court had reserved their judgment on February 26^th and announced it today morning.

Countering terms such as “offensive content”, the bench said, “what is grossly offensive to you, may not be grossly offensive to me and it is a vague term.. Highly trained judicial minds (judges of the UK courts) came to different conclusions by using the same test applied to judge as to what is grossly offensive and what is offensive,”

The bench observed that Section 66A directly conflicts with the Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression, which is one of the most important pillars of our democracy and constitution. They said that people have a right to know, and no law should be used to stop that.

As Section 66A is violating Article 19(1)(a), not saved by Article 19(2), hence its unconstitutional and has been removed henceforth.

As per the ruling, any online content can be blocked or action can be taken against the creator of that content, in three cases: The content can create communal disturbance, social disorder or affect India’s relationship with other countries.

What Section 66A Said

As per Section 66A of Information Technology Act, “Any person who sends by any means of a computer resource any information that is grossly offensive or has a menacing character; or any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.”

Here are some cases where police abused this law to arrest people:

Aseem Trivedi, Cartoonist, who was arrested in 2012 for mocking Parliament and politicians using cartoons

Palghar girls from Mumbai were arrested in 2012 for posting their critical views on the deal of Bal Thackeray

Professors from West Bengal were arrested for sharing cartoons mocking Mamta Banerjee, CM of West Bengal

Air India employees were arrested in 2013 for sharing jokes on Indian politicians

A Pondicherry businessman was arrested for sharing jokes on the son of P. Chidambaram

CPI (M) worker from Kerala was arrested for posting online jokes on PM Modi

A ship building professional from Goa was arrested for sharing some jokes on Indian politicians

Class 11^th student from UP was recently arrested for sharing his comments on hate speech delivered by UP Minister Azam Khan. Instead of arresting Azam Khan for spreading hatred, police arrested this 11^th class student for his views.

We congratulate the Supreme Court for restoring our faith in the Indian democracy and to support Free Speech.

http://trak.in/tags/business/2015/03/24/section-66a-scrapped-supreme-court/

Google Takes Defamation Case to India’s Supreme Court

An Indian Supreme Court hearing starting Monday on whether the local unit of Google Inc. is liable for allegedly defamatory comments made on its blogging site, will help decide how Internet companies do business in the growing south Asian market.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to start hearing arguments from the U.S. tech giant on Monday in the case brought by Visaka Industries Ltd., a construction materials company, which claims an activist used the Google blogging site Blogspot.com to spread false information about Visaka

Google lost the case in a High Court and appealed to the Supreme Court, saying it should not be held responsible for everything on its sites as it cannot control what users post.

Other search engines, blog sites, social media sites and even online retailers could be affected by the outcome of the case, lawyers said. The hearing could take months before a final judgment is delivered.

“People may not even roll out new products,” in India, depending on the outcome of the case, said an executive at a global technology firm. “It’s not worth the effort of investing.”

Google India argues that it can’t be held liable for content posted by users on a platform which is hosted by its parent company Google Inc.

Google Inc. didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the case.

India represents one of the last great untapped markets for Internet companies. The number of Internet users in Asia’s third largest economy is likely to jump to more than 500 million by 2015 from around 200 million today, according to an estimate by consulting firm McKinsey and Co. 

The case against Google was brought by Visaka Industries–a company based in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad which makes corrugated cement and asbestos fiber sheets—after an anti-asbestos blog hosted by Google’s Blogspot.com contained allegations that Visaka was being protected because it was backed by leaders of the ruling Congress party.

The author of the post Gopala Krishna said he still stands by his post, though he hasn’t been formally informed of the charges or the case.

“Whatever Google has said (in court) has supported freedom of expression,” Mr. Krishna told The Wall Street Journal. “They have done the right thing by not removing the content.”

A spokesman for the Congress party could not be reached for immediate comment.

Visaka said it had no connection to the party and filed a case charging Google India with criminal conspiracy, defamation and publishing content which is defamatory.

Google India challenged the charges at the High Court in the Southern Indian State of Andhra Pradesh and lost in 2011. It appealed to the Supreme Court which is beginning hearings on Monday.

If Google loses again it will be “liable for criminal activities on its network,” and have to step up its monitoring of what goes on online in India “Exercising of due diligence is a critical aspect for limiting liability of intermediaries.”

Google managers could be punished with up to life imprisonment and fines from 100,000 rupees ($1,595) to 1.0 million rupees and could also be asked to pay damages of up to 50 million rupees per violation.

India has started restricting Internet freedom in recent years, raising concerns among free speech activists.

In 2009 it amended its laws to hold Internet firms liable for “offensive,” “defamatory” or “blasphemous” content.  The amendments have been challenged in the Supreme Court but it has yet to rule.

In 2011,  India’s technology and telecommunications minister Kapil Sibal urged Internet companies to take down derogatory content from their websites

India needs to loosen these rules, regulations and political pressures or risk missing out of the Internet revolution, said Mishi Choudhary executive director of the Software Freedom Law Center based in New Delhi.

Sourcehttp://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/01/24/google-takes-defamation-case-to-indias-supreme-court/