For offensive content, no punishment under scrapped Sec 66A of IT Act, says SC: Report

Under the scrapped section, a person could be imprisoned for up to three years and also slapped with a fine for posting offensive content.

The top court had scrapped the provision on March 24, 2015, saying "the public's right to know is directly affected by Section 66A of the Information Technology Act" while emphasising that liberty of thought and expression is of "cardinal" importance.

A bench headed by Chief Justice UU Lalit said in all cases where citizens are facing prosecution for alleged violation of section 66-A of the Act, the reference and reliance upon the said provision shall stand deleted, according to a report in the media.

"We direct all Director General of Police as well as Home Secretaries of the states and competent officers in Union Territories to instruct the entire police force in their respective states/Union Territories not to register any complaint of crime with respect to alleged violation of section 66A," said the bench, also comprising Justices Ajay Rastogi and SR Bhat, the report said.

The top court clarified that this direction shall apply only with respect to offence punishable under section 66A, and if in the crime in question, other offences are also alleged, then the reference and reliance upon section 66A alone shall be deleted, it added.

Several criminal proceedings still rely upon section 66A of the Act and citizens are still facing prosecution, the court noted while referring to information given in a tabular form.

The information with regard to an all-India status report with regard to pending cases under section 66A was provided by the counsel appearing for the Centre.

"Such criminal proceedings, in our view, are directly in the teeth of the directions issued by this court in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India (March 2015 judgement) and consequently, we issue following directions….," the bench said, stated the report.

"It needs no reiteration that section 66A of the 2000 Act has been found by this court in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India to be violative of the Constitution and as such, no citizen can be prosecuted ....in said section 66A," it said.

The bench also said whenever any publication, whether government, semi-government and private, about the IT Act is published and section 66A is quoted as part of the statute book, the reader must adequately be informed that section 66A has already been pronounced upon by the top court to be violative of the Constitution, according to the report.

The bench was hearing a miscellaneous application of the NGO People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) alleging prosecution of people under the provision scrapped by the SC.