Sec. 66A of IT Act
unconstitutional
1)
The Supreme Court has ruled that section 66A of the Information
Technology Act, that had led to the arrests of many people for posting content
deemed to be “allegedly objectionable” on the Internet is unconstitutional in
its entirety.
2)
The Court observed that Section 66A arbitrarily, excessively and
disproportionately invades the right of free speech and upsets the balance
between such right and the reasonable restrictions that may be imposed on such right.
3)
The Court also said that the definition of offences under the
provision was “open-ended and undefined".
4)
However, the Bench turned down a plea to strike down Sections 69A
and 79 of the Act, which deal with the procedure and safeguards for blocking
certain websites and exemption from liability of intermediaries in certain
cases, respectively.
5)
The court went on to say that Section 66A actually had no
proximate connection with public order or with incitement to commit an offence.
The information disseminated over the Internet need not be information which
‘incites’ anybody at all.
6)
The court pointed out that a penal law would be void on the
grounds of vagueness if it failed to define the criminal offence with
sufficient definiteness.
7)
Those who administer the law must know what offence has been
committed so that arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement of the law does not
take place.
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Twitter Samvad
1)
It is a new platform by the union govt., in association with
Twitter, for direct communication among leaders, govt. agencies and citizens
through tweets and text messages, helping boost e-governance plans.
2)
The service is based on a platform provided by ZipDial, an Indian
company recently acquired by Twitter.
3)
Currently, the service has 16 partners, including Prime Minister,
the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, the
Railway Ministry; and the Bengaluru City Police.
4)
As part of the Prime Minister’s Digital India initiative, this
tweet-powered service enables citizens to be the first to know about the
government’s actions by receiving political content in real-time on their
mobile devices anywhere in the country.
5)
Through Twitter Samvad, a set of curated Tweets will be
delivered every day from the accounts of the govt. and the leaders to
mobile-phone users across the country as text messages.
6)
Twitter Samvad can come in handy during emergencies as government agencies
can share live updates, even time-sensitive information on law and order or rescue.
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