Victory for netizens: Ambikesh

KOLKATA: Professor Ambikesh Mahapatra, who was charged under Section 66A of the IT Act for forwarding an internet joke on CM Mamata Banerjee, on Tuesday welcomed the scrapping of the law by Supreme Court, saying justice may be delayed but it can’t be denied.
On the night of April 12, 2012, when Mahapatra was shoved into a police van and taken to police station, Shreya Singhal — who won the crucial battle for netizens on Tuesday — was studying astrophysics in UK’s Bristol University.Later that year, Ambikesh had contacted Shreya and two years later filed an interim application on the same issue.
“I know little about law and its interpretations. So when I heard about Shreya’s PIL in SC I contacted her. I spoke to her, e-mailed her and we touched base on Facebook too. I started to follow the case closely,” Mahapatra, who teaches chemistry at Jadavpur University, told TOI. The professor’s arrest was the first on the list of cases cited by Shreya to highlight the misuse of this law.
“Sometime later, Shreya’s counsel Mukul Rohtagi appealed to victims like us to come forth and participate in the court proceedings. It was then that I filed a separate application. A few days back, I also interacted with Prasant Bhusan, who has taken up the brief of another petitioner. Speaking to these legal experts, I had a sense that SC may find reason in Shreya’s argument. To me, a layman in law, it (66A) seemed too draconian and interpretative to stand any test of neutrality,” Mahapatra added.
Calling it a “victory of the common man’s freedom of speech”, he said: “This verdict will surely remove the fear psychosis among internet users that they may get arrested even for innocuous acts. It has come as a relief to many like me who have been subject to regular harassment due to the legal procedures.”
On August 13, 2012, when the Justice (retd) Asok Ganguly-led state human rights commission passed an order criticizing police for arresting Mahapatra, it mentioned that the cops seemed to have added 66A to the charges as an afterthought. The Mamata Banerjee government wasn’t willing to back down. State home secretary Basudeb Banerjee wrote back, arguing that whether it had been right to include Section 66A(B) was under judicial scrutiny since the chargesheet has already been submitted in court. Calcutta high court, too, referred to this section in its March 10, 2015, judgment in which it upheld the HRC’s recommendations of compensation to Mahapatra.
Justice Ganguly also welcomed the judgment. “It's a bold judgment and I wholeheartedly welcome it. The section was not only vague but provided for individual discrimination and was against the democratic principle, which is the essence of our Constitution. This judgment will play a large role in restoring freedom of speech which has often been curbed by powers that be by using this section which was against the constitutional rights and freedoms enshrined in Articles 14, 19 and 21,” he said.