The Indian Supreme Court on Friday sought explanation from the central and at least two state governments on the arrest of two girls made over a controversial section of the country’s Information Technology (IT) Act.
The Indian apex court swung into action on a petition by a student, Shreya Singhal, who on Thursday challenged Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, in the wake of last week’s arrest of two girls in the western state of Maharashtra over a comment on social networking site Facebook about Hindu fundamentalist party Shiv Sena’s late chief Bal Thackarey.
“The Maharashtra government is directed to explain the circumstances under which the two girls – Shaheen Dhada and Renu Shrinivasan – were arrested for posting comments made by them on Facebook”, ordered a two-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir.
The Indian Supreme Court gave the western state four weeks to file its response. It also ordered the governments of the eastern state of West Bengal and the southern state of Pondicherry to explain similar arrests made in the states in the recent past under Section 66A of IT Act.
In West Bengal, a Professor of Jadavpur University, Ambikesh Mahapatra, was arrested for sharing a cartoon of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Facebook in April this year. In October, Ravi Srinivasan, a businessman in Pondicherry, was arrested for tweeting against Karti Chidambaram, son of Indian Finance Minister P Chidambaram. Both were released on bail.
Meanwhile, India’s attorney general, in his response to the petition, told the Supreme Court that the arrest of the girls in Maharashtra was not justified. “The arrests were wrong, but Section 66A of the IT Act need not be scrapped,” he said, adding that the central government would soon issue guidelines to ensure that the section was not misused.
