The Supreme Court pronounced its verdict on Tuesday on a batch of petitions challenging constitutional validity of certain sections of the cyber law including a provision under which a person can be arrested for allegedly posting "offensive" contents on websites. It deemed the section unconstitutional. In their order, the court said, Section 66A is violative of Article 19(1)(a), not saved by Article 19(2), hence unconstitutional.

A bench of justices J Chelameswar and R F Nariman had on February 26 reserved its judgement after Government concluded its arguments contending that section 66A of the Information Technology Act cannot be "quashed" merely because of the possibility of its "abuse".

The court earlier had said that terms like 'illegal', 'grossly offensive' and 'menacing character' were vague expressions and these words were likely to be misunderstood and abused. Some of the petitions seek setting aside of section 66A of the Information Technology Act which empowers police to arrest a person for allegedly posting offensive materials on social networking sites.

What is Section 66A of IT act:

The Information Technology Act 2000 was amended in the year 2008. This amended act contains the much debated 66A section. It imposes punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service.

According to CIS-India.org, 66A applies to these cases :

(a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or

(b) any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device,

(c) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages.

Maximum jail term is three years.

As the court itself has pointed out, some of the terms are vague and are prone to misuse.

When was the first PIL filed?

The first PIL on the issue was filed in 2012 by a law student Shreya Singhal, who sought amendment in Section 66A of the Act, after two girls -- Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Shrinivasan -- were arrested in Palghar in Thane district as one of them posted a comment against the shutdown in Mumbai following Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray's death and the other 'liked' it.

Some prominent cases where 66A has been used

JU professor Ambikesh Mahapatra was arrested by West Bengal police for sharing cartoons on Mamata Banerjee. Subsequently HC asked the state government to give 50 thousand rupees compensation to Mahapatra.

Activist Aseem Trivedi was arrested for drawing cartoons which were critical of the Parliament and constitution. Businessman Ravi Srinivasan was booked for allegedly tweeting offesive remarks against son of a prominent politician.

What has been Court's view so far?

The apex court had on May 16, 2013, come out with an advisory that a person, accused of posting objectionable comments on social networking sites, cannot be arrested without police getting permission from senior officers like IG or DCP.

The direction had come in the wake of numerous complaints of harassment and arrests, sparking public outrage. It had, however, refused to pass an interim order for a blanket ban on the arrest of such persons across the country.

The court asked centre in December last year to clarify stand on the provisions that ensues arrest or be ready for such laws to be stayed.

At a later date, Apex Court said the Information Technology Act provision, which gives power to arrest a person for posting objectionable comments on social websites, cannot be quashed on the ground that it does not have 'mens rea' (motive or knowledge of wrongdoing) as one of the pre-requisites to constitute an offence.

The court's observation came when a lawyer said Section 66A of the IT Act deserves to be quashed as it creates a situation where a person can be arrested and jailed despite the fact that he neither intended nor had the knowledge that he was committing an offence.

With PTI inputs