NEW DELHI: Posting pictures and comments on social networking sites which hurt religious sentiments cannot be tolerated and people must be prosecuted under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Justifying the need for such penal provision in the Act, the government said hurting religious sentiments comes under the category of “grossly offensive” under the provision and such acts must be penalized.

Appearing before a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Rohinton Fali Nariman , Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta gave examples of how religious sentiments of people, cutting across all faiths, were hurt by posting of obscene pictures of gods and religious texts.

He said some posts depicting goddesses in biknis and showing gods in sexual relations with animals are highly objectionable and there is a need to curb such actions as people across the country get offended.

Emphasizing the need to continue with Section 66A, making posting of offensive messages on social networking sites an offence punishable by up to a three-year jail term, Mehta said it cannot be quashed or thrown out just because of its potential misuse.

“If the medicine is bitter then we can have sugar after it instead of throwing the medicine. People have to take the medicine as it is for their benefit,” the ASG said.

The bench, however, observed that the examples given by him is clear black and white case of offensive contents but majority of cases lie in the grey area where there is a chance of misuse of the penal provision.

It said conservatives would always term the opinion of reformists as offensive and cited the example of Galileo who was kept under house arrest till death for his theory that earth revolves around the Sun.

The ASG said every institution and every person right from the President can be subjected to criticism and it is people’s fundamental right to free speech and expression but such rights do not cover grossly offensive comments and posts on social networking sites.

The government was responding to queries of the Bench which had said the term offensive is “vague” and highly “subjective” and Section 66A is prone to misuse.

