Victim of Section 66 A, Cusat professor hails court verdict

March 26, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:51 am IST - KOCHI:

Kochi, Kerala, 25/03/2015: Dr.G AjithKumar.
Photo: Special Arrangement

Kochi, Kerala, 25/03/2015: Dr.G AjithKumar.
Photo: Special Arrangement

Sitting in his faculty room nearly 2,500 kilometres away from where the Supreme Court Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and Rohinton F. Nariman quashed Section 66 A of the Information Technology Act on Tuesday, G. Ajithkumar looked visibly relieved.

An associate professor at the School of Engineering at the Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat), he was among the hundreds across the country who had faced the heat of the draconian provisions under the Act.

Mr. Ajithkumar also holds the distinction of having impleaded himself along with several others in the case filed by the 24-year-old law student Shreya Singhal, who challenged Section 66 A of the IT Act in the Supreme Court.

“The Kalamassery police had invoked Section 66 A of the IT Act (FIR 176/2012) to arrest me based on a complaint filed by Sunny P. Jose, a Syndicate member of Cusat, for circulating an e-mail related to a news item published in a Malayalam daily criticising his nomination to the university body as a representative of the industry,” Mr. Ajithkumar told The Hindu here.

“Interestingly, Mr. Sunny P. Jose did not file any complaint against the newspaper management, which had published the item both in print and online,” he said.

Mr. Ajithkumar will never forget the day when the Kalamassery police reached his home to take him into custody. “But they could not arrest me, as I was in Bangalore where my daughter was studying. But they seized my computer. The hard disk is still in the possession of the court,” he said.

‘Gross misuse’

A teacher of mechanical engineering, Mr. Ajithkumar pointed out that the Section was grossly misused, especially by those who rubbed shoulders with the high and mighty. “There was pressure on the local police in my case as there was clear intention to put me behind bars at least for a day or two,” he said. Mr. Ajithkumar said the court verdict had once again ensured the Constitutional guarantee of free speech and expression.

Section 66 of IT Act was excessively arbitrary and against free speech

G. Ajithkumar

Faculty member, Cusat

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