New Delhi, Aug 7: The Supreme Court on Thursday stressed the need for a new law to regulate social media to curb malicious and defamatory messages circulated online.
"Section 66A was quashed because it was not properly drafted and was vague. We can ask Parliament to bring a new law. We have earlier also suggested Parliament to enact a law on other issues and we can suggest it to pass a legislation on this issue also," the bench said while hearing a bunch of petitions seeking scrapping of criminal defamation law.
The court's observation came when senior advocate L Nageswara Rao informed the bench that a message was recently circulated on WhatsApp that he was involved in a case of Section 376 of IPC (rape). Rao told the bench that he came to know about the malicious campaign only when secretary of Supreme Court Bar Association informed him about it and he got calls from various people.
Senior advocate K Parasaran, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae, also cited a recent incident in which wrong information regarding him was widely circulated on the social media.
Rao, who appeared for the Tamil Nadu government, strongly pleaded for retention of the defamation law. He said in the present era of internet and social media, such criminal provision has become more relevant.
The bench agreed that people should not be given free hand to run malicious campaign on social media and a new law should be enacted to curb such acts.
In March, the apex court had quashed the controversial provision in view of its misuse by government authorities. "Section 66A is so widely cast that virtually any opinion on any subject would be covered by it, as any serious opinion dissenting with the mores of the day would be caught within its net. Such is the reach of the section and if it is to withstand the test of constitutionality, the chilling effect of free speech would be total," the court had said.
The court had, however, agreed that there was a need for some mechanism to put checks and balances on online media.
"We make it clear that there is an intelligible differentia between speech on the internet and other mediums of communication for which separate offences can certainly be created by legislation," the court had said.
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