Need progressive replacement for section 66A: Chandrashekhar

Bengaluru, March 24 (IANS) There is need for a new, "modern" and "progressive" replacement in place of Information Technology (IT) Act's Section 66A which the Supreme Court struck down on Tuesday, parliament member and petitioner Rajeev Chandrasekhar said here.

"We need to bring a new law that is modern and progressive, as the IT Act of 2000 was amended in 2008," he said in a statement here.

The apex court struck down the section as it violated the Constitution's Article 19 (1)(a), which guarantees freedom of speech and expression to the citizens.

Hailing the apex court for its landmark judgment, Chandrasekhar, a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka, said the government would do well in holding discussions with all stakeholders before framing new rules, keeping in view the ever-changing technology, to safeguard citizens' freedom of speech and expression.

"The government will have to draft a new section, which will not be misused as was done with the scrapped Section 66A. In regulating the use of technology, one's right to express freely should be respected and not punished," he said.

In the public interest litigation (PIL) he filed in 2012, the city-based industrialist contended the section was not only unconstitutional, but also against the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution.

"Section 66A had criminalised any internet activity without defining the gravity of the offence or crime. The relevant section was applied or invoked by the executive without verifying the antecedents of its victim," he contended.

The section held out imprisonment up to three years and fine for anyone convicted of sending "by any means of a computer resource any information that is grossly offensive or has a menacing character; or any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult".

Chandrasekhar said he had tried to get the "draconian" section scrapped during the UPA-2 government through then IT Minister Kapil Sibal but did not succeed.

"Though Sibal assured us in parliament after a debate on the section that public consultation and multi-stakeholder discussions would be held to create a new section, nothing happened and the relevant section remained as part of the law," he said.

Calling upon the NDA government to initiate a dialogue with all the stakeholders on bringing a new rule, Chandrashekhar said that representatives from law enforcement, NGOs and IT experts should be consulted to draft the new section with intermediary guidelines that prevent abuse of the internet but protect the right to expression.