New Delhi: Police in Telangana will soon have the power to arrest those accused of criminal intimidation without a court nod, a move seen as an attempt to crack down on government critics.
The K Chandrasekhar Rao government has reportedly decided to make Section 506 and 507 of the Indian Penal Code cognizable and non-bailable offences, which means those accused of using “harsh words” against a person or institution can be arrested without permission from a magistrate.
While Section 506 deals with criminal intimidation of a person, Section 507 is for criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication (through social media or anonymous letters, mails). The punishment under both sections is imprisonment ranging from two to seven years, with or without fine.
Telangana government’s decision to use "harsh words" as a yardstick to determine an offence under the proposed amendments reminds of the Shreya Singhal case which led to the landmark verdict on Section 66A of the IT Act.
In the Shreya Singhal case, the court had found that not defining terms such as “grossly offensive” or “menacing” in Section 66A fell foul of Article 19(1)(a), due to the wide scope for discretion it allowed and the consequential effect on freedom of speech and expression.
According to constitutional expert Dr TK Vishwanathan, such an amendment to the IPC “is not a law unless passed by the central government and the President.”
“This amendment to the Indian Penal Code will not take effect unless it is approved by the central government. All these matters of Concurrent List are passed only by the assent of the President under Article 254 of the Constitution after central government approval. The central government would examine the various laws to deal with social media and then take a call. This is not a law at all and is only a suggestive proposal now,” said Vishwanathan, who was also the secretary general of the 15th Lok Sabha and Lok Sabha Secretariat.
Vishwanathan had recently headed the expert panel constituted to study the 267th Law Commission of India report on hate speech and has suggested amendments to the IPC, CrPC and IT Act.
The panel had said that for a speech to be deemed offensive it should have been “highly disparaging, abusive or inflammatory against any person or group of persons”, and should have been uttered with the intention to cause “fear of injury or alarm”.
The committee has proposed the addition of Sections 153C and 505A to IPC.
Inserting Section 153C was proposed by the Law Commission to prohibit incitement of hatred through online speech on the basis of religion, caste, community, gender, sexual orientation, tribe, language, place of birth etc.
Likewise, Section 505A was proposed to be inserted by the Commission to prevent alarm, fear, provocation of violence etc on grounds of identity. The expert panel qualified the offences with specific reference to the intention.
The Vishwanathan-led expert panel also expressed the need for guidelines to prevent the abuse of the provisions by investigation agencies.
PDT Achary, former secretary general of the 14th and 15th Lok and Lok Sabha Secretariat told News18 that "legislatures have a tendency to encroach upon rights of the people, but it is bound to be judicially reviewed."
"All legislations are liable to be judicially reviewed if they violate any random provision in the law or any provision in the Constitution. It is liable to be challenged by any citizen. The court has the final say on this and can strike it down. I don’t recollect any precedent as such, but legislatures have a tendency to encroach upon the rights of the people. Lots of questions have cropped up after the surge of social media," said Achary.
The move has also not escaped opposition criticism in the state.
Calling it an “autocratic” decision, Telangana BJP spokesperson Anugula Rakesh Reddy said, "How does the government define if a particular word is an abuse? It is very subjective. The government can very well misuse this to compel police to harass people who question the government."
"As elections near, the government is planning to stifle criticism and suppress opposition parties. This is against the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution. It only exposes the fear and frustration that's building up within TRS,” Reddy added.
Telangana Congress said the crackdown should begin from the CM himself. "If action has to be taken, it must start with the Chief Minister, who uses abusive language against leaders from opposition parties. Clearly, the TRS government is using Sections 506 and 507 of the IPC for its political motive to muzzle out democratic voices,” Krishank added.
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