In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court quashed Section 66 A of IT Act that allowed arrests for objectionable content online. The apex court, while passing its ruling, observed that the Section 66A of the IT Act was 'too vague and violative of 19(1) A of Constitution'. The highest court, while maintaining that Section 66A “affects freedom of expression and speech”, said, “what may be offensive to a person may not be offensive to others". Section 66A of IT Act clearly affects Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression enshrined under Constitution, the apex court ruled. “Public's right to know is directly affected by Section 66A of Information Technology Act,” the SC further said.

The ruling was passed by the bench of Justices J Chelameswar and RF Nariman, which had on February 26 reserved its judgment after the government concluded its arguments contending that Section 66A of the Information Technology Act cannot be "quashed" merely because of the possibility of its "abuse". The court had said that terms like 'illegal', 'grossly offensive' and 'menacing character' were vague expressions and these words were likely to be misunderstood and abused.

By Premji