LEGAL INTERNSHIP PROGRAM 2022

Student’s name – Shaurya Pratap Singh

Enrol. No. – 20FLICDDN02165

Batch name & year – B.A. LL.B. (2020-25) & 2nd year

Project title –Shreya Singhal v. Union of India

Submitted by- Submitted to –

Shaurya Pratap Singh Mr. Parth Upadhyay

20FLICDDN02165 Faculty,

ICFAI Law School.

Case name - Shreya Singhal and Ors. V. union of India

Citation – AIR 2015 SC 1523

Court – Supreme court of India

Bench – J. Chelameswar, R. F. Nariman

Petitioner – Shreya Singhal

Respondent – Union of India

FACT OF THE CASE
In 2012, the Mumbai police detained two females named Shaheen Dhada and Rinu
Srinivasan for protesting a bandh that had been imposed following the passing of Shiv Sena
leader Bal Thackery. On Facebook, these women posted their view. The Information
Technology Act of 2000 (ITA) Section 66A, which punishes anyone who sends information
through a computer resource or communication device that is grossly offensive or with
knowledge of its falsity, is transmitted with the intent to annoy, inconvenience, danger, insult,
injury, hatred, or ill will, is the basis for the arrests made by the police.

Although these women were later released by the police and dismissed their charges. This
incident got much attention by the media group and was heavily criticised. The women then
submitted a petition in Supreme Court, arguing that Section 66A is unconstitutional since it
interferes with their freedom of expression.

ISSUE
The main issue in this case was –

1- Are section 66A of Information Technology Act 2000 constitutional valid or not?
2- Whether section 69A and the rules are unconstitutional?
3- Whether Section 79(3)(b) and Information Technology “Intermediary Guidelines”
Rules, 2011 is constitutionally valid or not?

PLAINTTIFF’S CONTENTIONS-
According to plaintiffs, first and foremost Section 66A infringes the fundamental right to free
speech and expression and is not saved by any of the eight subjects covered in Article 19(2).
According to them, the causing of annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult,
injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill-will are all outside the purview of Article
19(2). Further, in creating an offence, Section 66A suffers from the vice of vagueness
because unlike the offence created by Section 66 of the same Act, none of the aforesaid terms
are even attempted to be defined and cannot be defined, the result being that innocent persons
are roped in as well as those who are not. The petitioner also mentioned that there is no
different between who uses internet and who uses offline mode to communicate. Thus,
violating the rights under article 14 and 2, because there is no exact definition of
communication mode.
RESPONDENT’S CONTENTIONS-
The respondent contended that it is a right of the government to regulate the rule as per the
need of the people and the court can only intervene when there is a question about the
inconsistency of the law. The ambiguity of law is not a ground to pronounce a legislation
ultra-vires to the Constitution of India, especially when it is deemed to be qualified and just
in nature on the other aspects. Mere possibility of abuse of a provision cannot be a ground to
declare a provision invalid and mere vagueness in act is not the good ground to declare the
act invalid.

COURT’S JUDGEMENT-
The main question was whether Section 66A of the ITA violated the right to freedom of
expression guaranteed by Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution of India. As an exception to
the law, Article 19 (2) allows the government to impose "reasonable restrictions" for India's
sovereignty and integrity. Under our constitutional system, government cannot curtail
citizen’s right to freedom of speech to encourage general public interest. Where there is no
reasonable standards are laid down to define guilt in a section which creates an offense and
where no clear guidance is provided to either law-abiding citizens or to authorities and courts,
a section which creates an offense and which is vague must be struck down as being
unreasonable and arbitrary. As it already clear that section 66A language is vague, open
ended and undefined meaning. The prospective offender under section 66A and the
institution which is responsible for its enforcement has no standard right to book a person
under section 66. Hence section 66A arbitrarily seizes the right to freedom of speech and it is
unconstitutional on the basis that it targets the innocent speech also and it is subject to use in
abusive way to arbitrarily limit the freedom of speech. Therefore, it must struck down on the
ground of vagueness.

Additionally, there is an intelligible differentia between speech on the internet and other
mediums of communication for which separate offenses can be formulated by the legislation.
Therefore, section 66A is not discriminatory under Article 14. Section 66A of the
Information Technology Act, 2000 is struck down in its entirety being violative of Article
19(1)(a) and not saved under Article 19(2).

REASON BEHIND THE DECISION-

The possible reason behind the decision can be that the Supreme Court agreed with the
petitioner that none of the ground was capable to prove the legitimation of section 66A of the
IT Act. The act itself was having undefined sections which can be use in negative approach
by the authority.

AN ANALYSIS –
In any democratic country, freedom of speech and expression has an important place in legal
system.

Supreme court’s decision in this case is and will be encouraging the common citizen to
rightly express their idea. And it will set guideline for the government to frame law which
have less vagueness and more clearer to the common masses.

In my observation of section 66A the term offensive is very undefined. What might be
offensive to someone may not be offensive to someone else. It doesn’t seem logically to shut
down the whole city that too city like Mumbai the financial hub of our nation on the death on
the prominent leader of the political leader.

If we see carefully there is two flaws in section 66A of the IT Act one, is it is not inclusive
and other is that it is not defined what the content of information can be. It is therefore the
petitioner were correct in their objection that undefined section 66A affect people’s right to
know anything.