ICT act
Writ with HC to declare Sec 57 unconstitutional
A writ petition was filed with the High Court yesterday, seeking that the court declares Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology Act 2006 unconstitutional.
Advocate Shishir Manir, a Supreme Court lawyer, filed the writ petition on behalf of Jakir Hossain, a resident of the Mirpur area of Dhaka, with the related bench of the HC challenging the legality of Section 57.
The petition sought HC rule on the government to explain why Section 57 of the ICT Act, 2006 (as amended in 2013) should not be declared unconstitutional.
Later, Manir told The Independent that he would move the petition before the HC bench of Justice Farah Mahbub on Sunday for hearing. The petition
said Section 57 violates the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 39(2) of the Constitution, and as such it is liable to be struck down as unconstitutional and void.
Also, a legal notice was served yesterday asking four secretaries to scrap sections 57 and 86 of the Information and Communication Technology Act within 24 hours. Advocate Eunus Ali Akond, a Supreme Court lawyer, sent the notice to the secretaries of cabinet, law, information and communication.
If the authorities concerned fail to take steps to scrap sections 57 and 86 of the ICT Act within 24 hours, legal action would be taken against them by filing a writ petition before the HC challenging the legality of the sections, Akond said.
Akond said sections 57 and 86 are contradictory to the Constitution. Freedom of thought and conscience and freedom of speech and press are guaranteed under Article 39 of the Constitution. But Section 57 of the ICT act has imposed restriction on freedom of thought and conscience, as well as freedom of speech and press.
Section 57 (1) of the ICT Act says: If any person deliberately publishes or transmits or causes to be published or transmitted in the website or in any other electronic form any material which is false and obscene and if anyone sees, hears or reads it having regard to all relevant circumstances, its effect is such as to influence the reader to become dishonest or corrupt, or causes to deteriorate or creates possibility to deteriorate law and order, prejudice the image of the state or person or causes to hurt or may hurt religious belief or instigate against any person or organisation, then this activity will be regarded as an offence.
Section 86 of the law protects public servants from the offence under the ICT Act which is violation of the constitutional provision of equal rights of the people in the eye of law.
The ICT Act was passed in 2006 and was amended twice, in 2009 and 2013. In the last amendment, offences under Section 57 were made non-bailable and the maximum penalty was extended to 14-year imprisonment.
Offence under this provision of the ICT Act is punishable by a minimum of seven years and a maximum of 14 years in prison. Fine can be as high as Tk. 10 million.
Since the inclusion of Section 57 in the ICT Act, rights bodies and rights activists have been criticising the government and demanding that it be scrapped. The uproar grew stronger after the police arrested journalist Probir Sikdar and remanded him in a case filed under the ICT Act on charges of defaming the LGRD and cooperatives minister through a Facebook post.
Sikdar was released a day after he was sent to police custody for three days. He is the publisher and editor of Uttaradhikar Ekattor News and Dainik Bangla Ekattor.
Rights activists have been vocal against these legal provisions, saying this effectively muzzles the freedom of speech and expression. The forum of print media editors, the Editors Council, has also demanded scrapping of Section 57.
