Panaji: A relief to those are being accused and were charged under the provisions of Section 66- A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, provided by the Goa Police which has decided to stop continuation of the proceeding under that section by following the ruling of Hon’ble Apex Judicial Authority of India (SC) which has declaring the said provisions being constitutionally invalid.
The provisions of section 66- A were not originally provided with the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, but added to it by the Amending Act of 2008 and was notified in the year 2009 in the month of February. The provision was a part of preceding section i.e. Section 66 of the Act, which is dealing with the computer related offences and prescribing punishment thereof. And the section 66-A was providing punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc.
Hon’ble Apex Court termed the provision as vague and violative of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India, which is guaranteeing the freedom of Speech. The said decision was pronounced by the Hon’ble SC on Tuesday 24th, last month, on the batch of petitions where the constitutionality of the certain provisions of the Cyber laws including the Section 66- A of IT Act, 2000 were challenged. The denied the validity of the provisions saying that the provision of section 66-A is directly affecting the Public’s right to know.
Following the said ruling of the honourable Apex Court, the Goa Police took the stand to close down the cases booked under the said section 66-A of the IT Act, 2000. Mr. Karthik Kashyap, Superintendent of Police- SP, Cyber Crime Cell, made it clear by saying that the Cyber Crime Cell has decided to close all the cases which were registered under the concerned provision and the communications were made to all police stations relating to the same.
It was also clarified by Mr. Karthik Kashyap, that the cases which were registered only under section 66-A of the IT Act, 2000 will be closed down and other cases which were registered under the clubbed sections will be remained pending. There were total 5 cases registered by the Cyber Crime Cell which are booked under section 66-A of IT Act, however, other fourteen cases were registered as clubbed with other sections of the IT Act, 2000 and sections of IPC also. The statistic is in relation to the present year. As per sources, in the most of cases relating to cyber crime in Goa, the accused are found from the age group between 15 to 25 years, are involved. And for each day, the Cyber Crime Cell is tabled with a one petition for deleting fake profiles or abusive and derogative posts, etc. As on last year, the Cell has received around 450 petitions.
by Faim Khalilkhan Pathan.