The Centre on Wednesday asked states and Union territories to give directions to all police stations not to register cases under repealed Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) also asked the States and UTs to sensitize law enforcement agencies for the compliance of the order issued by the Supreme Court on March 24, 2015. If any case has been booked under the scrapped section, such cases should be immediately withdrawn, the ministry said.
Section 66A of the IT Act had made posting "offensive" comments online a crime punishable by jail. However, after a long campaign by free speech activists, the apex court in its 2015 verdict in the matter of Shreya Singhal vs Union of India struck down this section.
Earlier this month, the top court had issued a notice to the Centre on the use of Section 66A of the IT Act and said that it was shocking that the judgment striking down the law has not been implemented even now.
