Supreme Court notice to the state, UTs and High Courts: Current Affairs Special Series

Team Adda247 and BankersAdda are here with a Current Affairs Special Series. In this series, candidates will be introduced to current affairs topics daily, which will not only improve their general awareness but also will ensure that the candidates do not lack in any current affairs topic. Today’s Current Affairs topic is Supreme Court notice to the state, UTs and High Courts.

Supreme Court notice to the state, UTs and High Courts

The Supreme Court has been issuing notices to states, Union Territories and registrar general of all high courts on the plea of an NGO that people are still being held under section 66A of the Information Technology Act which had already been scrapped by Supreme Court verdict in 2015. 

A bench that is attending the plea stated that as the ‘police’ is a state subject and it will be good for all the state governments and Union Territories if they can pass a comprehensive order so that the matter is settled for once and for all after they made the party. A bench is consisting of justices R F Nariman and B R Gavai. According to senior advocate Sanjay Parikh, who is appearing for NGO PUCL, stated that there are two elements in this matter, one is the police and the other is the judiciary in which such cases under section 66A are still being presented in the courts.

The bench said that as the judiciary is concerned it can be attended that and will issue notice to all the high courts. The top court has numbered the matter for further hearing after four weeks. As the Supreme Court has already handed its judgement and said, it has been surprised that people are still being booked under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which had already scrapped by it in 2015.” 

Under this scrapped section, a person who posted nauseating messages could be imprisoned for up to three years and also fined.

Section 66A of IT Act:

It had ordered three years’ jail if a social media message is causing or caused “annoyance” or was found “grossly offensive”.

Conclusion for the current scenario: 

The NGO pressed the Supreme Court to order the government, through the National Crime Records Bureau or any other agency, to collect all the data/information regarding FIRs/investigations under Section 66A and cases which have been pending in district and High Courts.