'Booking people under scrapped Sec 66A of IT Act matter of serious concern'

New Delhi: Calling a "matter of serious concern" the registration of FIRs under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act it had scrapped in 2015, The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the chief secretaries of states concerned to take back the cases within three weeks.

Under the scrapped section 66A of the IT Act, a person posting offensive content could be imprisoned for up to three years and also fined.

Terming liberty of thought and expression "cardinal", the top court had on March 24, 2015 done away with the provision, saying "the public's right to know is directly affected by Section 66A of the Information Technology Act .

Later, it took a serious note of the use of the scrapped provision by the law enforcement agencies and issued notices to states and high court registries.

It is the matter of serious concern that despite an authoritative pronouncement of this court by which the validity of the provision was set aside, the cases are still being registered, a bench comprising Chief justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhat said on Tuesday.

The top court directed the chief secretaries of the states concerned to take remedial measures as early as possible and complete the exercise of taking back the cases in three weeks.

In the circumstances, we have asked Zoheb Hossain, the counsel for the Centre, to communicate with the concerned chief secretaries of the respective states where the offences are still being registered or stand registered and impress upon them to take remedial measures as early as possible, it said.

The court said the counsel for the Central government, who will be free to communicate with the chief secretaries for seeking relevant information, would be assisted by lawyers representing state governments.

Let the entire exercise be completed in three weeks

from today. List the matter for consideration after three weeks, it ordered.

The bench was hearing a miscellaneous application of NGO 'People's Union for Civil Liberties' (PUCL) alleging prosecution of perople under the scrapped provision.

Senior advocate Sanjay Parikh, appearing for PUCL, submitted that Jharkhand has said 40 cases under the provision are pending before courts in the state. In Madhya Pradesh, the state machinery has taken cognizance of 145 cases and out of these, 113 are pending in courts.

The top court had on July 5 last year taken note of the plea of the NGO, saying it was amazing and shocking that people are still being booked under the provision which was trashed in 2015. Later on August 2, 2021 it had issued notices to all states, UTs and high courts on the plea.