Don’t censor the Net

Section 66 (A) of the Information Technology (IT) Act, which has been in news for being vague and inconsistent, may be another scam in making as it gives too much discretionary power to the police. While legal experts call it ultra vires the Constitution, Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar plans to file a public interest litigation (PIL) against the section to give a direction to the government to re-frame the law which very precisely and objectively defines the crime, the safeguards and the punishment. Right now, he feels that the wordings of the law are very vague and interpretation is at the hands of the police, which is not well equipped to understand its intricacies.

“This is not the way laws are made and I plan to file a PIL in the Supreme Court as the violation of this section is similar to other scams. Moreover, the way things stand today most issues finally get decided through courts. In fact, the government should be reviewing this Act as its utmost priority but it is not doing so. If the government does not do it then we need a court’s intervention,” Chandrasekhar told FE in the course of an interview.

The section provides for imprisonment for sending information which is ‘menacing in character’, used to cause ‘inconvenience’, ‘hatred’ and ‘annoyance’ and imprisonment up to three years and fine for sending spam or unsolicited e-mail messages through computer resource or communication

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