NEW DELHI: Three weeks after the Supreme Court quashed Section 66A of the IT Act , the home ministry has begun an exercise to bring back what officials say would be a “clear and better” provision that would help the government deal with social media posts aimed at inciting terror or any offence. The ministry embarked upon the exercise after central law enforcement and intelligence agencies complained that the striking down of Section 66A left them helpless in countering social media posts that involve national security considerations or incite people to commit an offence.The ministry on Monday set up a committee comprising officials from the Intelligence Bureau , CBI, National Investigation Authority, Delhi Police as well as itself to study possible changes in the legal framework to counter social media posts pertaining to these two areas.“We agree that Section 66A in its former form needed to be quashed as it was vague and loosely drafted. Whether we now bring back Section 66A in the IT Act in a clearer and better form or the Indian Penal Code (IPC) is tweaked to factor in the two concerns flagged by the security agencies, the committee will go into this over the next one month. The recommendations will then be sent to the IT ministry for consultations. The aim is to get a constitutionally compliant version of Section 66A. The provision will not be reinstated with the same construction as before and will be drastically different. Our aim is to protect the country’s sovereignty,” a senior ministry official told ET.The Supreme Court had ruled that Section 66A violated people’s fundamental right to speech and expression, saying public’s right to know is directly affected by the provision.“The apex court rightly said the Section was poorly constructed and used general terms such as ‘causing annoyance’, ‘grossly offensive’ and ‘menacing character’.The provision will be made much more specific so as to stop social media activities like someone canvassing support for terror acts or online recruitment for terror outfits such as ISIS or putting out posts that could lead to incitement of an offence like communal riots,” the ministry official said.The official said the exercise will be carried out “with due care and caution” and there will be clarity on whose orders cases can be registered under the newly drafted provision and who can order arrests. “We want to ensure there are no indiscriminate arrests and no undue harassment,” he added.Section 66A of the IT Act had earlier been widely misused by police forces in states such as Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra to arrest innocent persons for posting critical comments on social media websites about political leaders or other personalities.Activist Aseem Trivedi was arrested in 2012 in Maharashtra under the Section for drawing cartoons of Parliament and the Constitution to depict their ineffectiveness. A FIR against him was recently squashed by the Bombay High Court A law student, Shreya Singhal, had filed the first PIL in the Supreme Court in 2012 followed by many others seeking striking down of the Section.