THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the
Supreme Court striking down section
66Aof the IT Act,
finance minister K M Mani has lost a chance to get even with
filmmaker Aashiq Abu, who had started an online campaign hash tagged Entevaka500 against the minister after bar
bribery allegations surfaced.
Filing a complaint against Abu was one of the first things Mani did after he managed to present the budget. Officers at the cyber police station in Pattom confirmed that they had registered a case against Abu after receiving a complaint from Mani’s office.
However, the apex court verdict came before they could take further steps. “We did not even send him a notice. He might not know about the case,” said inspector T Syamlal.
In a state where citizens are more active on social media, the Supreme Court order, has come as a relief to cyber law enforcers as those booked under this section.
Since the formation of cyber police in 2009, 80% of the total cases registered there happened to be under section 66A. But there have been no active follow-ups in most cases. The new apex court order is likely to lessen the workload of cyber sleuths. Almost all cases registered under section 66A are either politically motivated or the result of bitter personal rivalry.
“We also receive genuine complaints on website and email hacking, online money frauds and job frauds. We can now concentrate more on them,” the inspector said.