The fever of cricket is not
untouched even in the court of law as the Supreme Court quashed “do-do Chhakke”
i.e. article 66A on Tuesday, 24th March. The move was widely
accepted as a positive one by the apex court, terming it historical. The erstwhile
draconian law curtailed the very fundamental right to freedom of speech and it
severely curtailed information that might be sent on the Internet based on whether it was
grossly offensive, annoying, inconvenient, etc,
The law was passed under the
regime of UPA II in 2009 in the name of the Information Technology Act which authorized
police to arrest people for social media posts construed “offensive” or
“menacing”. The law was heavily misused by political leaders like Azam Khan, a minister
in UP who got an eleven standard girl arrest for posting a status on FB. Mamta
Bannerjee ha many arrest held in Kolkata, cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was arrested as well, and son of the then
Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s son also had one of the persons arrested. Similar incident was reported in Thane in 2012
when two girls were arrested for posting “Respect cannot be taken by force” for
Bal Thackeray regarding shutdown on his funeral .this triggered the petitioner
Shreya Singhal to file a PIL against this law.
So, what is the conclusion of the
story? First of all the legislators amend laws favoring them and then have the
temerity of making numerous arrests based on such disgusting laws. It is the judiciary
that is keeping a proper check on these otherwise ferocious hounds preying on
the very masters they serve.
On one hand we feel that we live
in a free nation with all the amenities to use freely but the moment we try to
foment on public forum we get lashed out. Remember the Ramleela Maidan and
Jantar Mantar (New delhi) incident during the agitation by India Against
Corruption under the guidance of Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal? The government tried all its malicious intent
to sabotage the stirring but thankfully the crowd stood its ground and true
democracy defeated the despondency. I consider this verdict to be an apology to
that incident.
How can a person be detained on posting his/her anguish online
in this tech-driven environment? What are we, North Korea? You can call citizens Haramzadon and still roam scott-free; you can openly convey the message of relieving police off their duty for 24 hours to orchestrate a nationwide massacre and still fight an election. But, the moment we write down a piece that pin points the inconvenience your fraternity causes, then we are sent behind bars. No sir, with due respect, you will have to mend your ways
and fall in line. The Big Brother is watching.
Concluding the post I must thank
the makers of the constitution who made sure that judiciary had an independent
role and a vital one otherwise our mother nation would have gone to the dogs. Arrest
me for this if you want to. Arghh.
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