Internet & its Legal issues (Internet Cases and disputes)
Palghar Case
Criminal case was filed against the two 21 year old women, Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Shrinivasan for posting and commenting on Facebook regarding the shutdown on the day of Shiv-Sena chief Bal Thackeray's funeral. The complaint was filed by Sankhe, a member of Palghar unit of Shiv Sena. The girls were arrested under 66(a) of IT Act (punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service). The girls' subsequent arrest had sparked a nationwide outrage which embarrassed the Maharashtra government. Later, the police had concluded that there was no evidence against the girls. So the police withdrew the charges by filing ‘C’ Summary report, on the grounds that “it was neither true nor false”. The session court accepted the police closure report and dropped the charges.
July 24, 2013 Bombay high court reprimanded the Maharashtra Government for not launching Criminal proceedings against the illegal arrest of palghar girls “There cannot be a different law for common citizens and police officers," it warned. Division bench of Justice Dharmadhikari and Justice Shukre was hearing a PIL calling attention to the delay in action on an inquiry report submitted by the special inspector general (Konkan range) into the wrongful arrests of Palghar girls.
Ravi Shridhar (Pondicherry, Twitter case)
Ravi Shrinivasan Pondicherry based businessman was arrested by the police under S/66(a) of IT Act. The complaint was filed by Karti Chidambaram (son of P. Chidambaram) through an E-Mail to the Inspector General of Police, in which he accused him of malicious intent to defame a good man. He was produced before a judicial magistrate and released on bail.
Ambikesh Mahaptara (Mamta Banerji, Cartoon Case)
Ambikesh Mahapatra(a chemistry professor) and Subrata Sengupta were arrested by the police for circulating emails mocking Mamta banerjee (CM), Mukul Roy and Dinesh Trivedi. They were charged under the following grounds:
1. Defamation (s/500) IPC
2. Intended to insult modesty of woman. (s/509) IPC
3. Sending false and offensive message through communication services u/s. 66(a)
First two charges against Mr. Ambikesh were dropped by the court and the Commission said that “prima facie there was no case against the two under Section 509 of IPC. It also pointed out that their arrest was a case of, police excess and highhandedness.”
After a massive hue and cry generated by their arrest, Professor Mahapatra was granted bail the next day. After the incident Bengal Human Rights Commission took the Suo Moto cognizance of the case, not only recommended departmental proceedings against two police officers for being "over-zealous" but also ordered the state government to pay compensation of Rs.50, 000 to Professor Mahapatra and his neighbour.
8th march 2013’s report Calcutta High Court refused to admit a petition seeking judicial to the Mamata Banerjee government to implement the human rights commission’s recommendation in the Ambikesh Mahapatra case. The division bench of Chief Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Joymalya Bagchi heard the petition. The Division bench said that "The media wrongly reported on March 1 that the petition was admitted. It was not correct." And it also asked “why the person concerned (Prof Mahapatra) not filed a case, and what interest did the litigant have in filing the PIL”.
On 31st august 2013 Division bench asked Prof. Mahaptara to inform High Court about his view on PIL within two weeks.
Shreya Singhal’s PIL
30thNovember 2012 report- Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir on Friday asked three central ministries, the states of Maharashtra, West Bengal and Delhi and the Union Territory of Puducherry on Friday to respond within four weeks to a public interest petition (PIL) seeking an amendment to the controversial Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act.
Chief Justice also asked also asked the Maharashtra government to explain why the two girls in Palghar near Mumbai were arrested last week for criticizing on Facebook the shutdown in the city for Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s funeral.
Singhal contended in her plea that “the phraseology of section 66A of the IT Act, 2000, is so wide and vague and incapable of being judged on objective standards, that it is susceptible to wanton abuse and, hence, falls foul of Article 14, 19 (1)(a) and Article 21 of the Constitution.”
Blackberry Dispute
Blackberry limited formerly known as Research In Motion Limited (RIM) is a Canadian telecommunication and wireless equipment company best known as the developer of the BlackBerry brand of smartphones and tablets. Due to its confidential agreements service security policy with their consumers it was not allowed to check any confidential information about the Blackberry consumers. Initially check on emails sent/received via BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) over BlackBerry devices were restricted
Indian law enforcement agencies opposed the RIM for their restriction, as it was the matter of National security. After a four year standoff with Indian Government over providing encryption keys for its secure corporate emails and popular messenger services was finally set to end. The lawful access capability now available to BlackBerry's carrier partners meets the standard required by the Government of India for all consumer messaging services offered in the Indian marketplace.
July 10, 2013 it was reported that the Government will soon sign an official agreement with BlackBerry. According to the agreement which is to be signed between the Indian Government and BlackBerry, the company will also train five government officials to handle company’s technical architecture, operation and maintenance of the monitoring facility at its Ontario facility.
Google vs. China
About past few years china has banned some Google services for e.g. Google docs, Google Drive, Google encrypted, Google+, Google sites etc. not only Google but also other website such as Facebook, Youtube, Skype, Blogspot, Wordpress and many other websites. The Google-China dispute surfaced on January 12, 2010 when the search engine company said it and other companies were the target of cyber-attacks originating in China aimed at gaining access to the e-mail of Chinese advocates for human rights.
Google announced that it is no longer willing to comply with China's requirements that it censor the results of searches in that country. The relationship between Google and China has never been smooth, as the search engine's mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible" flies directly in the face of the country's restrictive government.
One more notable incident which Chinese government did to prove its rigidity regarding its internet policies was proved when China blocked access to the New York Times after the outlet published an investigative report on the wealth of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and his family.
