BackSupreme Court examines legality of IT Act provisions
Court asks if it's possible for the legislative to set parameters by which it could be decided whether a website has violated the provisions of the IT Act
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked whether it was possible for the legislative to set parameters by which it could be decided whether a website has violated the provisions of the Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act).
A bench of justices J. Chelameswar and S.A. Bobde asked if it was “possible for legislature to decide" or “give any kind of parameter" without an “assessment" of the particular material or content.
The court was considering the scope of section 69A of the IT Act which gives the central government power to block “information" for “public access" over a “computer resource" if the same is “in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states or public order or for preventing incitement".
On Thursday, one of the petitioners, Anoop M.K., through lawyer Gopal Sankaranarayan, argued that the lack of guidelines as to what could be considered material that had to be blocked invalidated section 69A.
In addition, one of the arguments made by Sankaranarayan was that section 66A (which punishes sending offensive messages through a communication service) ensures that there is different punishment for the same action only because the medium is different. As a result, the medium used to express—in this case the Internet—would diminish the freedom of speech and expression. For example, what would not be an offence when published in a newspaper could become one if published on a website. Calling this contention “formidable", Bobde also remarked that there was a “vagueness" in the law since whether an offence is committed or not would largely depend on the “sensitivity of the recipient".
The court is hearing a group of petitions challenging sections 66A, 69A and 80 (power of police officer and other officers to enter, search) of the IT Act as being invalid and unconstitutional. They first came to light after the arrests of two Mumbai girls, including Shaheen Dhada, for criticising the city’s shutdown after Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s death on a popular social media website.
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