NEW DELHI: Citing Supreme Court’s strong observations in the influencer Ranveer Allahabadia case, the parliamentary standing committee on communications and information technology has sought from ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) a note on the efficacy of existing laws to deal with such cases and the need for amendments to the law to bring online platforms under legal scrutiny.
The parliamentary panel headed by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey has written to MeitY secretary S Krishnan on the matter. The committee has sought to know if the ministry is proposing any amendments in IT Act, 2000 and other measures being contemplated for “regulation and monitoring of obscene, indecent, vulgar and slanderous content in digital and social media platforms”.
The committee has sought the information in light of growing incidents of misuse of digital and social media platforms. Also it is aimed at “safeguarding the societal values and protect the dignity of women and children while adhering to the creative expression and freedom of speech guaranteed under Article 19 (1)(a) of the Constitution”.
The attention of the ministry was drawn by the committee to the recent observation of SC , while hearing the case of Ranveer Allahbadia relating to his controversial remarks on the standup show ‘India’s Got Latent’.
“SC, while feeling the need to draw a line between free speech and vulgarity, has observed that free speech does not grant any right to indulge in obscenity and that the remarks were offensive to the societal norms,” it highlighted.
In this connection, attention of the ministry is drawn to Section 66A of IT (Amendment) Act, 2008 which was intended to provide protection against offensive or insulting message, speech or information made online by granting powers to govt to make arrests in such cases of misuse of freedom of speech.
It is further pointed out that the section 66A was however declared ‘unconstitutional’ by SC in the case of Shreya Singal Vs Union of India in 2015 citing the reasons that the section did not fall within the reasonable exceptions of freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India.
It is in this backdrop the committee has sought a note from the ministry on what amendments are required.
