Enforcement of India\'s Internet to Be Revised

Saeed Khan/Agence France-Presse - Getty ImagesThe Facebook login page.

The central government plans to revise the enforcement of a controversial Internet law that led to the arrest of two young women for their Facebook activity, a senior official in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said Thursday.

Last week, the police arrested Shaheen Dhada, 21, a medical student in Mumbai, after she posted a Facebook update questioning the forced citywide shutdown over the death of a far-right Hindu political leader. A friend who clicked “Like” on the post, Renu Srinivasan, 20, was also arrested. The arrests and the law used to justify them, the Information Technology Act, were sharply criticized by free speech advocates.

Communications Minister Kapil Sibal said Thursday that the ministry planned to ensure that senior police officials approve any future complaints before a case is registered under Section 66A of the law. The amendment, added in 2008, makes it a crime to digitally send “any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character.”

The guidelines for this enforcement will be decided “at the earliest,” said J. Satyanarayana, the secretary of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology. They will be issued after consultations with several ministries including the Ministry of Home Affairs, he said.

“The implementation could be improved,” Mr. Satyanarayana said of the law, noting that the department plans to have police officers with the rank of inspector general or higher approve cases in states and those with the rank of deputy commissioner of police or hi gher in metropolitan cities.

The change follows the announcement Tuesday by R.R. Patil, the home minister of Maharashtra, the western state where the young women were arrested, that henceforth in cases involving violations of the I.T. Act, a senior officer would first investigate the matter and then a lawyer would be consulted before any action was taken.

On Thursday, Shreya Singhal, a young law student from Delhi, filed public interest litigation with the Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of Section 66A. The court is scheduled to hear the case Friday.