No arrest for posts on social sites without permission: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court
today said that no person should be arrested for posting objectionable comments
on social networking sites without taking prior permission from senior police
officials. The apex court, which refused to pass an order for a blanket ban on
the arrest of a person for making objectionable comments on websites, said
state governments should ensure strict compliance of the Centre's January 9
advisory which said that a person should not be arrested without taking
permission from senior police officials.
'We direct the state
governments to ensure compliance with the guidelines (issued by Centre) before
making any arrest,' a bench of justices B S Chauhan and Dipak Misra said. It
said the court cannot pass an order for banning all arrest in such cases as
operation of section 66A (pertaining to objectionable comments) of the
Information Technology Act has not been stayed by the apex court which is
examining its onstitutional validity.
In view of public
outrage over people being arrested for making comments or liking posts on
Facebook, Centre had on January 9 issued advisory to all states and UTs asking
them not to arrest a person in such cases without prior approval of a senior
police officer.
The advisory issued
by the Centre says that, 'State governments are advised that as regard to
arrest of any person in complaint registered under section 66A of the
Information Technology Act, the concerned police officer of a police station
may not arrest any person until she/he has obtained prior approval of such
arrest from an officer, not below the rank of Inspector General of Police (IGP)
in metropolitan cities or of an officer not below the rank of Deputy
Commissioner of Police (DCP) or Superintendent of Police (SP) at district
level, as the case may be.'
The apex court was
hearing an application seeking its direction to the authorities not to take
action for posting objectionable comments during the pendency of a case before
it pertaining to constitutional validity of section 66A of the Information
Technology (IT) Act.
The section states
that any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or communication
device, any information that was grossly offensive or has a menacing character
could be punished with imprisonment for a maximum term of three years, besides
imposition of appropriate fine. The petition was also filed regarding the
arrest of a Hyderabad-based woman activist, who was sent to jail over her
Facebook post in which certain 'objectionable' comments were made against Tamil
Nadu Governor K Rosaiah and Congress MLA Amanchi Krishna Mohan. After filing of
the petition, she was released by a district court at Hyderabad.
Jaya Vindhayal, the
state general secretary of People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), was
arrested on May 12 under section 66A of the IT Act for the 'objectionable'
post. According to the police, she had also allegedly distributed pamphlets
making objectionable allegations against Rosaiah and Mohan before posting the comments
online. The matter was mentioned before the bench by law student Shreya
Singhal, seeking an urgent hearing in the case, saying the police is taking
action in such matters even though a PIL challenging validity of section 66A is
pending before the apex court.
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