Thane police file FIR under dead Section 66A

Thane, April 10: The controversial section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which was quashed by the Supreme Court is still alive for Thane police.

According to a report in an English daily, the police had charged the dead draconian law against a person running an alleged abusive Facebook page against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Rabodi police station in Thane district after receiving an information from a 42 year-old local and an aviation professional Mayekar, filed an FIR on Sunday, April 5, against the owner of the page 'Revelation Tanzeel'.

As per the report, it is understood that the page contained abusive content against Prime Minister Modi and it was deleted after an FIR was filed.

The owner of the page, who works for Mumbai International Airport also shared the post to his friends.

Meanwhile, the police who understood their 'blunder' refused to comment on the incident. They are also looking to drop the section 66 A as they are unable to make changes in the FIR copy.

The draconian section 66 A was allegedly misused by political parties to crack down those who posted critical or divergent views in the social media.

A class 11 student from Uttar Pradesh, who posted links against Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan with a communal incident was jailed by making use of the IT Act. [Controversial Facebook post: Azam Khan justifies boy's arrest]

The purpose of Section 66A, according to the annotations of the law, reads, "Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc."

The Supreme Court scrapped the notorious Section 66A of the IT Act on Tuesday, March 24 by considering that the law is misused by police against innocent citizens exercising free speech on social media.

OneIndia News