The Information Technology Act – called the Information Technology Act (2000) or ITA 2000 – was enacted on 17th October 2000 by the Indian Parliament. The act amongst other things, gave legal sanction to electronic transactions, electronic signatures and filing & storage of electronic records. The ITA 2000 also codified offences emanating from the use of information technology. The ITA 2000 was majorly amended in 2008.
The 2000 act showing changes on account of 2008 amendments can be downloaded from the Ministry of Information Technology Website. I invite the readers of this post to please go through the act which, I am sure, should be interesting and informative. At the minimal, I recommend that the reader first looks up some definitions like Computer System, Computer Resource, Computer Network, data, information etc. in the Preliminary Chapter and then go straight to Chapter XI - Offences. A small interesting bit detailing power of police officers to search and seize is in Chapter XIII (section 80). As managers dealing with IT administration or managing a workforce that uses IT, familiarity with the IT Act is very important.
While the IT Act 2000 is an empowering and important piece of legislation, it has been criticized for the asymmetry that it creates between the power of the state to surveil (substantial) and the protection that the act provides to citizens against such surveillance (minimal). Section 66A of the act which pertains to sending offensive electronic messages uses many ambiguous terms like 'causing annoyance' , 'grossly offensive' 'menacing in character' , 'causing inconvenience' , 'ill will' etc. which can be interpreted very loosely and can result in a three year jail term. Many people have been controversially booked under 66A. Alarmed by such convictions, a PIL was filed in the supreme court against provisions of section 66A and in 2015, the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India quashed section 66A of the IT Act calling it unconstitutional.
However, shocking as it may sound, even after the Hon’ble Supreme court struck down this section from the IT act in 2015, years later the police in various parts of the country continues to prosecute people under the struck down section 66A! Taking serious cognizance of this, the Hon’ble supreme Court in January 2019 has issued an order that any official booking people under the struck down section 66A will be jailed.
With digital technology becoming all pervasive, many challenging battles are likely to be witnessed in the legal arena as law tries to catch up with fast paced digital disruption.
While it is S.66A that has gained maximum attention, the judgment also considered the validity of other provisions of the IT Act namely Section 69A (authorize the Central Government to block or order an intermediary (such as Facebook, YouTube or any internet/ telecom service provider) to block access by the public of any content generated, transmitted, stored, etc. in any computer resource, if it is satisfied that such content is likely to create communal disturbance, social disorder or affect India's defense and sovereignty, etc..).
ReplyDeleteThe Court has decided to repeal S.66A on its probability to cause restriction to free speech. The contradiction is that by upholding S.69A, this judgment continues to provide political/Government authorities with an avenue to “restrict free speech” by issuing an order on vague grounds to filter any published content if they do not find the same to be agreeable.
Also, the alternate provisions to book offences of online media like Section 499, 124A, 295A and 506, etc. of the IPC have been criticized for being misused before S.66A was introduced. S.66A provided an opportunity to genuine victims of cyber harassment to obtain relief against content that used to be insulting or injurious.
So, is repealing Section 66A justified?