The Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday a writ petition filed by Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin, seeking to quash the charges filed against her under the Information Technology Act for a controversial tweet criticising a meeting between Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal and religious leader Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan.
A Bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi agreed to hear the petition after senior counsel K.K. Venugopal made a ‘mention’ for urgent listing of the petition.
Ms. Nasrin said she was constrained to approach the apex court as the Uttar Pradesh government registered a case against her in Bareilly merely for expressing her views on Twitter. A fatwa was issued in the nature of a virtual death threat and a price of Rs. 5 lakhs fixed on her head.
Ms. Nasrin said the FIR was based on a newspaper report on November 6 about the meeting Mr. Kejriwal had with Maulana Tauqueer Raza Khan. Her protest on twitter was in the specific context of a public announcement against her in 2007 which was never withdrawn and continued to be live even today. Ms. Nasrin said the FIR was an abuse of the process of law. Further, Section 66A of the IT Act was so wide and vague that it was incapable of being judged on objective standards. She contended that this provision infringed on the right to freedom of speech and expression.
Ms. Nasrin pointed out in her petition how the Uttar Pradesh police had been clubbing other penal provisions with Section 66A of the IT Act and arresting persons merely for expressing their views on the internet.
