Hyderabad: The Supreme Court had ruled that to attract Section 506 of IPC, the threat must be with intention to cause alarm to the complainant to make that person to do or omit to do any work and mere expression of any words without any intention to cause alarm would not be sufficient to bring in the application of this Section.
The apex court in the Manik Taneja versus State of Karnataka case in 2015 held that material had to be placed on record to show that the intention was to cause alarm to the complainant.
The case was that Taneja had posted comments on the Bangalore Traffic Police Facebook page, accusing an inspector Kasim of his misbehaviour towards him and his wife. Kasim lodged a complaint against them under Section 353 and 506 of IPC.
When this case was taken up to the Supreme Court, it was observed that “as far as the comments posted on the Facebook are concerned, it appears that it is a public forum meant for helping the public and the act of appellants posting a comment on the Facebook may not attract ingredients of criminal intimidation in Section 503 IPC.”
Hyderabad High Court in June 2014 in the case of S. Purnachandra Rao versus the State of Andhra Pradesh quashed an order passed by a lower court of the city permitting police to investigate a case under Section 506 of IPC on the ground that the order under reference or order directing registration of a non- cognizable offence should contain some information showing application of mind to the case on hand.
Lawyer Pradyumna Kumar Reddy, while recalling the observations of the Supreme Court, when striking down Section 66 A of the Information Technology Act, said that making comments against ruling governments and their leaders could not be curtailed in a democratic country and if such tendency was to be allowed, then the basic fabric of democracy would be shattered.
