The Supreme Court on Wednesday reiterated that no citizen can be prosecuted under section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, which it had scrapped way back in 2015.
A headed by Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit said in all cases where citizens are facing prosecution for alleged violation of section 66A of the Act, the reference and reliance upon the said provision shall stand deleted.
Under the annulled section, a person posting offensive content could be imprisoned and fined, the court said.
Already on March 24, 2015, the court done away with the provision, saying the public’s right to know is directly affected by Section 66A of the IT Act.
“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 S.R. Bhat.
The top court clarified that this direction shall apply only with respect to offences 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 observed the information given in a tabular form by the counsel appearing for the Centre does suggest a number of criminal proceedings still rely upon this provision and citizens are still facing prosecution, that despite the issue regarding the validity of section 66A of the Act having been decided by the apex court.
The court said 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.
The bench was hearing a miscellaneous application of the NGO People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) alleging prosecution of people under the scrapped provision.
