Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (An autocratic act in a democratic country) that was published in Newsband

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An autocratic act in a democratic country

Maharashtra police had arrested two young women for exercising their constitutional right to free speech and expression on Facebook. This is an autocratic act in a democratic country. Should the policemen who arrested the two youngsters be penalized for wrongful arrest, illegal restraint and confinement? Did they really trample constitutional freedom of these young women? The police had found the Facebook comment by one of the women on the Mumbai shutdown following Bal Thackeray’s death, and its endorsement by her friend, objectionable. Can the police resort to making arbitrary arrests and cloaking their censorial actions using a combination of Indian Penal Code sections? After all, what can be illegal about expressing an opinion about so public an event as the complete shutdown of the country’s financial capital?

The rise of community websites as networks is hope for the average citizen but it is obviously discomfiting many in authority. The medium has the power to name, shame and embarrass the high and mighty. But should people who use the medium legally be arrested. Brazen misuse of the power to arrest continues, because there is no significant penal outcome. There are clear Supreme Court guidelines on making an arrest, which have been blatantly violated in the case of the ‘Facebook women’ and many others before them. An arrest cannot be made simply because it is legal; the police officer must be able to justify the act.

The primary culprit in this whole issue is the Section 66A of IT Act which gives policemen such a free hand in handling citizens for freely expressing their views about the political clan in India.

The Maharashtra government should take cognizance of the matter and deal with it strongly to convince the people that they stand by them at such an event of arbitrary confinement of one of them.

Websites like Facebook, Blog, Twitter etc. empower people to bring forth their feelings about any event. And, if they are not allowed to do even that then why is India called a democratic country?

It is the unconstitutional IT Act that is blamed for this recent persecution of free speech in India. How such an act could be passed in parliament without informing the public? It is now time to organize, demonstrate, challenge the law in the courts or do whatever that needs to be done to pressurize the government to amend the IT Act.