What is Section 66A of the IT Act?

The Supreme Court today struck down the hugely controversial Section 66 A of the Income Tax Act, stating that the Act was not only ‘vague’ in the way it was worded, but it was also ‘unconstitutional’. So what does the Section say that created such a huge backlash from the public in general? Since the Section came to power, several petitions were filed at various courts challenging the section on the basis of what constituted ‘grossly offensive or menacing character’? The main contention has been that who is it that will decide what action or ‘post’ or ‘comment’ constituted ‘offensive’ enough to be put behind bars. Many an individual and political party has on several occasions used or rather misused the provisions within the section to jail individuals who aired their opinion on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Cases in point:

· Jadavpur University professor, Ambikesh Mahapatra, was arrested in Kolkata for forwarding a cartoon about Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
· A class 11 student from UP was jailed for posting on Facebook a comment on UP minister Azam Khan. Khan belonging to the ruling Samajwadi Party ensured he was behind bars in no time.
· In UP again, a Varanasi tourism officer was arrested for uploading “objectionable” pictures of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, and Azam Khan on Facebook.

So what exactly does Section 66 A of the IT Act say?

The Information Technology Act, 2000 was amended in 2008. The amended Act which received the assent of the President on February 5, 2009, contains section 66A.

66A-Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc.

Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device,—
(a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or
(b) any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device,
(c) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.

For the purpose of this section, terms “electronic mail” and “electronic mail message” means a message or information created or transmitted or received on a computer, computer system, computer resource or communication device including attachments in text, images, audio, video and any other electronic record, which may be transmitted with the message.