Freedom with a caveat

That most of these instances were too frivolous to attract the provisions of the Act became evident soon after, when not only social media activists but also the courts frowned upon the arrests, leading politicians to take a position against the unwarranted harsh action. In fact, the Centre had to issue guidelines that no arrests under Section 66A could be made without the express permission of senior officers. Now that the apex court has clearly ruled on the issue, it is to be hoped that over-zealous police constables and their immediate superiors will exercise restraint and not round up citizens from their homes, often at the crack of dawn as they have done in some cases, on the pretext that the persons had caused ‘offence' by their postings on networking sites. A mere difference of opinion and a few angry words do not constitute a crime, and certainly not a crime of such grave nature that the ‘offender' must be locked up in prison.

Of course, activists who have been waging a battle against such detention and arrests would have wanted Section 66A to be altogether scrapped. But given the instances of gross misuse of social media by mischievous elements who have more devious designs up their sleeves than to ridicule politicians and other public figures, it would be prudent to retain the provision. We have seen how social networking sites have been exploited by certain elements to spread communal and anti-national venom among the people. Even text messages through mobile phones have led to widespread riots and killing. Given this reality, the Supreme Court has wisely not struck down Section 66A. 

The problem has been that many personalities who have come under attack on social media have been unable to digest even the mildest form of criticism and have registered complaints against their critics, invoking Section 66A. Because the definitions of the offences committed under the Section are hazy and prone to be stretched according to the whims of the police, there has been rising misuse of the provisions. law-makers will do well to re-visit those tricky provisions and fine-tune them so that the element of discretion is reduced or even altogether done away with. Not doing so in the belief that the apex court's directive will take care of the issue, can prove problematic. After all, senior police officers who take the final call, will also base their discretion on the existing flawed provisions and, thus, go wrong.