Will examine cyber law provision as it stands today: SC

Supreme Court today said it would test the constitutional validity of a controversial provision of cyber law giving the police powers to arrest web users for posting objectionable contents, saying it would not consider the government's stand that it was open to changes.
"We have to judge the statute as it stands today. We are not concerned with your (government's) stand," a bench of justices J Chelameswar and Rohinton F Nariman said.
The court's remarks came when Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the government does not want to save "anyhow", section 66A of the Information Technology Act and is open to suggestions to "amend/change" the law in question.

"We are not in an adversarial litigation. The court can record my statement that the penal consequences, as provided in section 66A, will not be made applicable in cases relating to freedom of speech and expression of citizens," he said, adding that the court may consider making the offence under the provision as "non-cognizable".
This will create a situation where the criminal law will be set in motion after judicial scrutiny and police will not be able to act on its own, he said.
"How long will a gentleman remain in jail? He may remain in jail till a judge of the Supreme Court or any other court will apply the judicial mind," the bench said.

Dealing with the word "grossly offensive", the bench referred to the judgement cited by the ASG and said, "what is grossly offensive to you, may not be grossly offensive to me and it is a vague term."

"Highly trained judicial minds (judges of the UK courts) came to different conclusions by using the same test applied to judge as to what is grossly offensive and what is offensive," it said.
The bench then asked the ASG as to who will decide as to what are grossly offensive contents. "Of course, it is the SHOs and other policemen," it said.
The apex court is hearing a batch of petitions challenging constitutional validity of several provisions of the Act. The petitions primarily came in the backdrop of the arrest of two Maharashtra girls for making comments on the shutdown of Mumbai for the funeral of Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackeray.