Days after the uproar over the arrest of netizens in Maharashtra under the stringent Section 66A of Information Technology Act, the Centre on Thursday issued an advisory to State governments highlighting fresh operational guidelines for invoking the controversial act.
The decision was made at a meeting of the Cyber Regulation Advisory Committee to review the IT act.
According to new operational guidelines, the concerned police station in charge or station house officer will not register any complaints under Section 66A unless he or she has obtained prior approval from an officer of the DCP rank in rural-urban areas and IG level officers in metro cities.
“So far there is no proposal to amend the IT act because such matters have to be taken up in Parliament. The government has issued operational guidelines so that a senior officer can exercise proper due diligence before deciding to register a case under the act. Some members expressed that a particular section is being misused and hopefully operational guidelines will be able address the concerns,” sources said.