PILs on IT provision; Balancing needed in view of incidents: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Voicing concern over "unfortunate" incidents of social media being misused to foment trouble, the Supreme Court today said a balanced view is needed while deciding pleas seeking scrapping of the controversial IT Act that allows police to arrest a person for offensive messages.

"We will have to look into it. Very unfortunate things are happening in some parts of the country," a bench comprising justices H L Gokhale and J Chelameswar said.

It was submitted that section 66A of the Information Technology Act needed to be struck down for being violative of various fundamental rights, including the freedom of speech and expression and prone to abuse.

The bench referred to a recent incident of Bangalore where students of a particular region started fleeing to their native places following misinformation spread through social media.

"Both (validity of the law and its necessity) things are required are to be balanced," the bench said, adding it would commence final hearing on five PILs in January next year.

When pointed out that some states have not filed their responses, it said, "they will face the consequences."

The controversial provision provides maximum three years jail term for sending offensive messages through "a computer resource or a communication device".

Earlier, the court had decided to examine the validity of the provision under which two girls in Maharashtra were arrested for posting comments on Facebook during the shutdown in Mumbai for Bal Thackeray's funeral.

Initially, the bench had asked the Centre and four states to respond to the PIL of Shreya Singhal, a Delhi-based student.

Shreya, in her plea, had said "unless there is judicial sanction as a prerequisite to the setting into motion the criminal law with respect to freedom of speech and expression, the law as it stands is highly susceptible to abuse and for muzzling free speech in the country."

Later, four other PILs were filed on the issue.