CHENNAI:While the debate on the Supreme Court striking down as unconstitutional Section 66A of the Information Technology Act revolves around free speech, police officers maintain that the provision is mostly used against stalkers, who use electronic media to harass girls and women. As the section became a nullity from Tuesday, concerns are raised whether this would be a handicap in handling cyber-stalking and cyber-bullying cases.
“There is a great misconception that Section 66A is against freedom of speech. But, this is only against persons who use electronic media to harass others. For instance, a person repeatedly calling up a woman on the phone every midnight and disconnecting the call without uttering a word, will cause mental torture to and anxiety for the woman. In the absence of section 66A, we have no other law to book such harassers,” argues K Ravichandar, Cyber Society of India.
In his view, it is unfortunate that public attention towards Section 66 A was grabbed by its abuse in a few cases, like the arrest of persons who criticised politicians, burying the real purpose of this law, which is to address cyber-stalking.
Police officers agree that section 66A comes handy in dealing with cyber-stalking or bullying cases, in which the victims are most often women. But, they do admit there are adequate provisions in the Indian Penal Code.
“I personally don’t agree with the Supreme Court’s view that the entire section must be removed just because it was misused in a few cases. For that matter, every law can be misused. But I don’t think nullifying this section will be a big handicap for police handling cyber-stalking. Between IPC section 500 and 506, there are several provisions that can be a substitute,” says a police officer who had handled several cyber related cases.
The other option available for a person is to file a defamation case or a civil suit, if he feels that the information posted on him in the internet is false and offensive.
“The general view is that the provisions of the IT Act is draconian. But, in fact there is not even a single non-bailable section in the act. A magistrate, if he feels that police had exaggerated a case, can release the accused on bail and the person need not even step into a prison. So, the general opinion among police officers is that this law is toothless. Even in women stalking cases, we generally include sections from Prevention of Women Harassment Act, some of which are non-bailable,” say other police officers.
Yet, a few cyber experts are still concerned about the abolition of the Section 66 A. “I completely agree on the principles of free speech. But, in social network sites and internet today there are lot of paid trolls to intentionally defame or spread bad information on people. They are sometime politically motivated, very active and spread false information. I feel they must be controlled by some manner,” says J Prasanna, Head (TechCORE), Cyber Security & Privacy Foundation.