Verdict eve: Women held in Mumbai (left), Kolkata prof want law scrapped. Verdict eve: Women held in Mumbai (left), Kolkata prof want law scrapped.

From a cartoonist in UP to a professor in West Bengal, from a diploma-holder in Maharashtra to an MP in New Delhi — on Tuesday, all eyes will be on Supreme Court as it decides the fate of the controversial Section 66A of the Information Technology Act.

In what will be the first ever verdict in India on the right to freedom of speech on the Internet, Justices J Chelameswar and Rohinton F Nariman will rule upon the validity of a law that allows police to make arrests over “offensive” social posts.

Section 66A prescribes the punishment for sending “offensive” messages through computers or any other communication device such as a mobile phone or a tablet, and a conviction can fetch a maximum of three years in jail.

The bench has to decide if the law is a “direct assault” on the civil liberties of Internet users, since it allegedly accords unbridled powers to police to arrest people for posts which may be construed as “offensive” in accordance with the subjective discretion of authorities.

A batch of petitions have contended that the vagueness of the terms like “offensive” and “menacing” arm the police and the State with the power to silence the right to speech and to criticise — the basic tenets of a democracy.

On the other hand, the government has argued that the law, in its present form and with support of a set of additional guidelines issued in January 2013, was to be looked at as “reasonable restriction” on an individual’s fundamental right to speech and expression as envisaged under Article 19 of the Constitution.

The big call for Supreme Court is this: Is Section 66A so arbitrary and vague that it must be repealed despite guidelines that try to put certain safeguards against arrest? Or, can the law be retained with specific guidelines although there was a possibility of its abuse?

”Section 66A is unequivocally inconsistent with the liberal democratic values of India and it cannot be retained on the statute book. It is a very onerous provision, giving unacceptable arbitrary power to the police,” Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar, one of the petitioners, told The Indian Express.

Asked about the 2013 guidelines, the lawmaker said they could not be an answer when the content of the law was bad. “Issuance of procedural guidelines cannot remedy fundamental flaws within Section 66A. To say that it is only a law enforcement implementation problem is mis-characterising the problem. The law must be repealed and replaced,” he added.

Ambikesh Mahapatra, the Jadavpur University professor who was arrested by Kolkata Police after he circulated a cartoon making fun of CM Mamata Banerjee in a rip-off from a Satyajit Ray movie, said: “I want the Supreme Court to scrap Section 66A.”

Speaking to The Indian Express from Kolkata, the professor, who was recently awarded a compensation of Rs 50,000 for his wrongful arrest in 2012, said that the law had been used by state governments across the country for political vendetta and for silencing critics.

”The way that this law has been drafted, it is very difficult to amend it in a way to make it less open to misuse,” said Mahapatra, who had also filed an intervention application in the court.

Aseem Trivedi, who was arrested for drawing cartoons lampooning Parliament and the Constitution to depict their ineffectiveness, compared the law to “terrorists” who targeted Paris last month.

Speaking to The Indian Express from Kanpur, Trivedi said, “Section 66A can be compared to the terrorists who brought bloodshed in Paris on the offices of the magazine, Charlie Hebdo. This provision must be taken off the Act. There have been examples of rampant misuse and it is a severe attack on a person’s right of expression. It instills a constant fear of arrests. How can a democracy work when its people live with perpetual fear of arrest?”

The first petition in the court was moved by a Delhi law student Shreya Singhal, following the arrest of two 21-year-old girls —- Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Shrinivasan —- in Palghar, over 100km from Mumbai, in November 2012 over a Facebook post on the shutdown of the state capital for the funeral of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray.

Shreya said that she has also requested the court to order the Maharashtra government to award damages to the two girls.

Today, Shaheen is married and settled in Bengaluru, while Rinu, who was arrested for “liking” Shaheen’s post, lost out on a year of studies because she had to fight the case.

Rinu subsequently moved to Kerala to complete her diploma in audio engineering last year and is back in Mumbai.

”I hope that the Supreme Court eliminates the law,” said Rinu. “My family suffered a great ordeal because of my arrest. I was scheduled to take up a diploma course in Audio Engineering in Kerala but had to postpone my plans by a year because of the case.”

She added that after her arrest and release, she was off social networks for a week but decided to return following the massive support she received from people.

Yet, she admits she is cautious before posting anything on Facebook. “I usually refrain from commenting on political developments, but I take to social media on social issues, especially those concerning women,” she said.

Shaheen was not available for comment but her uncle Dr A G Dhada, whose clinic was vandalised by alleged Shiv Sena supporters before his niece was arrested, claimed the family was still to get compensation promised by the state government.

”We were promised Rs 50,000 but it has not be paid so far. It’s been over three months now,” he said.

(With ENS/Mumbai)

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