Section 66A of IT Act is unconstitutional : SC

New Delhi, March 24, 2015 (Agencies) The Supreme Court on Tuesday declared Section 66 A of the IT Act as unconstitutional. The Section gives the police powers to arrest those who post objectionable content online and provides for a three-year jail term.

A bench of justices J. Chelameswar and R.F. Nariman had on 26 February reserved its judgement on one of the most controversial issues regarding the freedom of expression that the court has had to deal with in recent times. The verdict was reserved after the government concluded its arguments contending that section 66A of the Information Technology Act



cannot be declared unconstitutional merely because of the possibility of its “abuse”.

The government said it did not want to curtail the freedom of speech and expression but contended that the cyber space could not be allowed to remain unregulated.

During hearing however, the court had found several issues with the wording of the law. In particular, it said that terms like ‘grossly offensive’ and ‘of menacing character’, used to classify content as illegal, were vague expressions and these words were likely to be misunderstood and abused.