The Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that extreme political views and decent humour in the cyber world cannot be prohibited but tried to make a case for blocking outrageous and offensive content which hurts religious sentiments.





Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Tushar Mehta submitted before a bench comprising Justices J Chelameswar and R F Nariman, sealed packets containing some offensive materials being circulated in different websites.



“The extreme political views or contrary views and decent humour cannot be prohibited. But there are materials — outraegously and directly offending religious sentiments— which needed to be blocked,” he said.



A new bench started hearing a fresh a batch of petitions seeking scrapping of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act for its misuse by law enforcing agencies in arresting people for sending alleged offensive messages.



The development came due to the change in the combination of judges in the bench.

Law student Shreya Singhal had in 2012 filed the PIL after two girls Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Shrinivasan were arrested in Palghar in Thane district under section 66A of IT Act after one of them posted a comment against the shutdown in Mumbai following Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray’s death and the other ‘liked’ it. Subsequently a number of PILs were filed challenging validity of the legal provision.

