The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday asked all the Union Territories and State governments to stop the registration of cases under the charge of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, by law enforcement agencies. It was further ordered that all ongoing cases registered under the section must be withdrawn immediately.

Section 66A was drafted to protect against the dissemination of information through a computer source that might cause annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, or ill-will. However, the wording of the section was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of India in Shreya Singhal v Union of India.

The rationale behind its unconstitutionality was posited to be the vagueness of the terms such as “annoyance” and “inconvenience” prohibiting speech under Section 66A. Owing to the lack of definition it was found by the court that the given provision had a chilling effect on the very Freedom of Speech that was guaranteed by the Indian Constitution under Article 19(1). In addition to this, the restrictions under Section 66A were not found viable under the permissible restrictions enunciated under Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India. Since the given provision was found to be in derogation of the Constitutional Scheme of India, the provision was altogether struck down.

This landmark decision was lauded by Indian constitutional experts, and, as per Gautam Bhatia (an Indian Constitutional Law Expert), the decision was quoted to be the best piece of free speech news since 1960. It has been brought to the notice of the Supreme Court that the Indian government has been unable to sensitize law enforcement agencies. While awaiting a final decision of the Supreme Court It is in due consideration of the following case that the Ministry of Home Affairs issued another advisory to put a stop to complaints being lodged under Section 66A by the police.