Scrapping of 66A: My Take
โโYesterday supreme court scrapped the controversial section 66A of IT information act. The freedom of speech activists are โover joyous with this decision. It was called the draconian act which curtailed the freedom of expression or free speech and violated our fundamental rights. Under this act we had seen many people being arrested for expressing their thoughts. For example a cartoonist from Jadavpur university was arrested a creating a cartoon that made fun of chief Minister of West Bengal, two girls from Palghar who had written Facebook post on the death of ShivโSena supremo Bala Saheb Thackeray which offended the shiv sainiks. These are the just the examples of one side of the coin. We have also seen instances where social media and internet is used as tool spread rumours and create panic, one of them was using whatsapp and messages to spread rumours about attack on North east people in Bengaluru during mid of 2012. This led to mass panic among people from North East and they startedโ โto back to their home state. Like this we have had several instances which have even led to violence and days of shut down.
Itโ's a โgood thing that the supreme court has scrapped down section 66A, now.its time the government comes up with new law which is more clearer and distinguishes the two faces of freedom of speech โand keeps the first face away from the law. The law should be formed with consultations from eminent jurists, freedom of speech activists and also the citizens. I hope this government will soon come up with a law which is not ambiguous.
