The Karnataka High Court, in one of its recent order has fumed over Police Officers for registering FIR under an act already struck down by the Supreme Court of India.

The Court was very displeased and directed two Police Officers to pay a cost of ₹10,000 each for registering a First Information Report (FIR) under Section 66 (A) of the Information Technology Act, which has been struck down by the Supreme Court.

The Court has directed Assistant Sub Inspector, M Somanna and Police Inspector, Ravi Patil, to pay the cost with the Registrar General of High Court, within four weeks.

The Court said:

"This is a case in which police have initiated criminal proceedings invoking provisions of law which is not in the statute book. Police have initially recorded the complaint as NCR and for reasons best known the very same officer has registered FIR after one week. This is nothing but a clear abuse of process of law and harassment to the citizen."

What's the matter? 

The petitioner herein had approached the Court seeking to quash the FIR and the proceedings registered at the Srirampura Police Station on April 25, 2019.

Legal Counsel of the petitioner had contended before the Court that Police have taken up the investigation for the offense which has been struck down by the Supreme Court.

The Court took due diligence of the matter and then accordingly directed both the officers to file their personal affidavits in which they tendered unconditional apology and said that the mistake wouldn't be repeated in the future. The Court then allowed the petition and directed the Registrar General to report the receipt of the amount to the Court.

SC Notice

Last year, the Supreme Court had issued a notice on a PIL which brought to the attention of the Court the continued use of Section 66A IT Act by Police, despite the provision being struck down in the 2015 Shreya Singhal decision.

The Bench comprising of Justice Rohinton Nariman and Justice Vineet Saran was well aware of the Taking note of the seriousness of the submissions and thus asserted that the concerned officials will be arrested if its order scrapping the provision has been violated.

Why Section 66A has been scrapped? 

Section 66A had been dubbed as "draconian" for it allowed the arrest of several innocent persons, igniting a public outcry for its scrapping.

This had led to the Supreme Court striking it down as unconstitutional in March 2015 in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India.

The Court, in its judgement ruled that the provision violated Freedom of Speech and Expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India and that it didn't fall under the reasonable restrictions enunciated under Article 19 (2).

The order has been passed by Justice P S Dinesh Kumar on 02-01-2020.

Read Order Here:

 

Share this Document :

Picture Source :