Today, in a landmark judgement upholding freedom of expression, the Supreme Court struck down a possibility in the cyber law which provides power to detain a person for posting allegedly “offensive” content on websites. The section gives police the powers to arrest anyone for sending offensive messages from mobiles and computers with up to 3 years in jail.
Terming liberty of thought and expression as “basic”, a bench of justices J Chelameswar and R F Nariman said, “The public’s right to know is directly affected by section 66A of the Information Technology Act.
