This is a commendable initiative that the interim government has decided to repeal all the "speech offence"-related cases which were filed under the Cyber Security Act (CSA). This has brought a great sigh of relief to those who have either been detained or indicted under this specific clause of the Act.
According to a press release issued by the Law Ministry on Monday, in the first phase, 879 out of the 1,340 cases lodged with cyber tribunals over speech offence would be rescinded. The process of revoking the cases will be completed in coordination between law and home ministries.
Actually, CSA was codified in the parliament late last year during the rule of the previous government with some cosmetic changes of the Digital Security Act which was enacted in 2018. This was like the new wine in the old bottles.
The major concern of the CSA was that it had four non-bailable sections with police officers given free hand to put people behind the bars without any arrest warrant. This is why it caught flak from journalist community, human rights organizations and the Transparency International.
The four non-bailable offences were related to intrusion into key information infrastructures, damaging computers and computer systems, cyber terrorist activities and hacking related crimes. The intrusion into important information infrastructures and others were in section-17, while damaging computers and computer systems were in section-19, cyber terrorist acts and committing such crimes were in section-27 and hacking related crimes were in section-33.
Initially, it was thought that the CSA would bring about major changes replacing the DSA. But only a little amendment was added to the CSA
without consulting people in the know and other stakeholders who were demanding for doing away with the DSA with the replacement of a relaxed new one.
But the CSA was more or less like the old one and continued to criminalise the sacrosanct of press freedom keeping non-bailable offences intact that were widely misused to arrest, intimidate and muzzle critics.
As a result, as of August 2024, a total of 5,818 cases were filed under the Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006, the Digital Security Act, 2018 and the Cyber Security Act, 2023, across eight cyber tribunals in the country.
Among these cases, those related to the expression of free speech on digital platforms have been identified as "speech offences," while crimes involving computer hacking or fraud using digital devices are categorised as 'computer offences'. At present, cases over speech offence include 461 under investigation and 879 pending.
We are in belief that all the individuals implicated in the clause of the speech offences under the CSA would be granted absolution as soon as possible.
