Legal advice before recording section 57 cases!

The Inspector General of Police has issued an order on all police units to seek advice from the legal wing of the Police Headquarters before recording any case under section 57 of the ICT Act. The direction comes in the wake of indiscriminate use of the law under tenuous claims to harass and sue people, many of them journalists. Given the long history of protests and reservations about the section, we would like to point out here that the IGP's direction—well intentioned at it may be—cannot be the solution, when it is the provision itself, and not just its haphazard application, that is the problem.

Let us take only one example: the suing of a journalist for sharing a report about the death of a goat. What sounds like something from the realms of satire is exactly what we witnessed a few days ago in the case of Abdul Latif Morol who was sued under section 57. In the above case, the police not only accepted the case, but the journalist was arrested when, reportedly, over 50 policemen surrounded his home at midnight. That the magistrate then took cognizance of the case and provided bail shows that the issue is not about absence of legal knowledge. We wonder if it was considered at any stage of the legal process whether the case merits cognizance at all. With the IGP's order, the main issues with section 57 remain just as unresolved.

We have repeatedly stressed, the provision is a threat to freedom of expression and free speech, and our fears that the media will be the hardest hit have been well justified. In this context, when personal grievances and political sycophancy result in ridiculous cases, the government must realise that the problem is with the law itself. We urge section 57, with its threat of disproportionate punishment, be scrapped from the ICT Act, and not sneaked in through the backdoor under guise of the Digital Security Act.