New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a plea seeking to restrain government authorities from taking any coercive action against anyone for posting alleged objectionable comments on social networking sites. An application was filed before the apex court seeking its direction to the authorities not to take action for posting such comments during the pendency of a case before it pertaining to constitutional validity of section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act.
The section states that any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or communication device, any information that was grossly offensive or has a menacing character could be punished with imprisonment for a maximum term of three years, besides imposition of appropriate fine. A bench of justices BS Chauhan and Dipak Misra will also hear the plea for release of Hyderabad-based woman activist who was arrested and sent to jail over her Facebook post in which certain "objectionable" comments were made against Tamil Nadu Governor K Rosaiah and Congress MLA Amanchi Krishna Mohan.
Jaya Vindhayal, the state general secretary of People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), was remanded on May 13 in judicial custody for 12 days following her arrest the previous day under section 66A of the IT Act for the "objectionable" post. According to the police, she had also allegedly distributed pamphlets making objectionable allegations against Rosaiah and Mohan before posting the comments online.
The matter was mentioned before the bench by law student Shreya Singhal,
01:01 PM, May 15, 2013
New Delhi: The rift within the National Democratic Alliance over Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi seems to be growing. After the Janata Dal (United), now the Shiv Sena has hinted that it wants the Bharatiya Janata Party to decide on its Prime Ministerial candidate. "Narendra Modi was not in the PM race when Sushma Swaraj met Bal Thackeray. Let the BJP decide on the PM candidate first, we will decide...
01:59 PM, Apr 11, 2013
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Monday accused NCP chief Sharad Pawar of "playing vote bank politics". "Balasaheb never back-stabbed anybody. He did not take a stand only for the sake of vote bank politics like Pawar," Uddhav said. ...
05:32 AM, Feb 19, 2013
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on Tuesday rules out any alliance with Shiv Sena. This comes after Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray had expressed willingness to join hands with his cousin Raj Thackeray. ...
08:01 PM, Feb 12, 2013
A Palghar court has closed the case against the two girls - Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Srinivasan - who were arrested for posting a comment on Facebook on the bandh after the death of Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray on November 17, 2012. ...
02:00 PM, Feb 01, 2013
The Shiv Sena has asked the BJP to clarify its stand on its Prime Ministerial candidate before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday said that the NDA should decide its candidate in advance. ...
09:24 AM, Jan 31, 2013
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray's recent statements to join hands with cousin Raj Thackeray is the direction ahead for the party says party spokesperson Sanjay Raut. ...
11:22 AM, Jan 30, 2013
Shiv Sena's declaration of support for Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj as NDA's Prime Ministerial candidate on Tuesday is the latest in a series of pronouncements the party has made on who should be the NDA nominee for the country's top job. ...
08:47 AM, Jan 30, 2013
A patch up is reportedly in the offing between the Thackeray cousins ahead of the 2014 elections. Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray hasn't dismissed the idea. ...
08:14 AM, Jan 30, 2013
The Shiv Sena on Wednesday distributed knives to women in Mumbai for "enhancing their personal security" in the backdrop of recent attacks against women. ...
01:26 AM, Jan 24, 2013
Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray, son of the late party supremo Bal Thackeray, formally took charge as the party president on Wednesday. Even as the decision was on expected lines, the timing of the event was symbolic as the party observed the birth anniversary of Bal Thackeray, who passed away on November 17, 2012 at the age of 86. ...
03:52 PM, Jan 23, 2013
The Shiv Sena has planned to distribute knives to women at different places as a means of enhancing their personal security in the wake of the recent harassment cases against women. The Shiv Sena has taken up the task of distributing knives to women on late founder Bal Thackeray's birth anniversary on Wednesday. ...
02:20 PM, Jan 23, 2013
On the birth anniversary of Bal Thackeray on Wednesday his son Uddhav is set to formally take charge of Shiv Sena. The Sena national executives will meet on Wednesday to anoint him and initiate son, Aditya Thackeray into the party fold. There are two other vacant spots which are also expected to be filled with, one of them going to Neelam Ghore - who will then be the party's first...
06:39 AM, Jan 23, 2013
Describing late Bal Thackeray as an "open-hearted" person, Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari said in Mumbai that the Sena patriarch was not a "dictator" and always took decisions, which he felt were "reasonable". ...
01:03 PM, Jan 19, 2013
The Bombay High Court on Monday asked the Maharashtra government what action it had taken against policemen who arrested two girls from nearby Palghar district for posting comments on Facebook against the bandh observed in Mumbai during Bal Thackeray's funeral in November in 2012. A bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka asked prosecutor Konde-Deshmukh to file by February 12 a reply on action taken by the state government in this...
04:10 PM, Jan 14, 2013
The controversial section 66A of the Information Technology Act does not infringe on freedom of speech - that's what the Centre and the Maharashtra government told the Supreme Court in their affidavits on the Bal Thackeray Facebook post controversy on Thursday. ...
10:09 PM, Jan 10, 2013
A boy from Ashti tehsil in Beed was on Wednesday arrested after he threatened to bomb the Bangalore stadium, which hosted the India-Pakistan match in the first Twenty20 international series, police said. According to police, Amit alias Akshay Bhandari, a B Sc student from Kada village in the district rang up Bangalore police from his mobile on Monday, threatening a bomb blast at the Chinnaswamy stadium on Tuesday, after the...
07:56 PM, Dec 26, 2012
The death of Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray went on to become the biggest news in Maharashtra's political arena in 2012, during which two-time chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh also passed away, the state secretariat caught fire and NCP strongman Ajit Pawar quit the Prithviraj Chavan-led ministry, only to rejoin it two months later. Though he never held any office, Thackeray dominated the state's political landscape for over four decades and...
11:50 AM, Dec 25, 2012
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has demarcated the area to build a landscaped garden in the memory of late Shiv Sena patriarch Balasaheb Thackeray at Shivaji Park in central Mumbai. The proposal to build a 20 x 40 feet landscaped garden has been submitted by the Shiv Sena to the BMC. ...
05:09 PM, Dec 20, 2012
The hanging of 26/11 convict Ajmal Kasab, deportation of his handler Abu Jundal from Saudi Arabia, explosions in Pune, arrest of two girls over their Facebook post and August 11 violence at Mumbai's Azad Maidan grabbed the headlines in Maharashtra in 2012. ...
04:52 PM, Dec 19, 2012
