Deepali Kalia
A Panel formed by the Union Home Ministry for suggesting reforms to the British Era Indian Penal Code (IPC) is likely to recommend formation of a separate section on “offences relating to speech and expression” in the code.
Since there is no clear definition in IPC of what is “Hate Speech”, the panel for reforms will be attempting for the first time to define such speech.
“Who will decide what constitutes a hate speech? Legally speaking, for criminal Sections to be invoked, any such speech has to lead to violence or disturbance of law and order. We will refrain from using the word ‘hate speech’ as it is a loaded term, merely criticizing someone is not hate speech,” stated G.S. Bajpai,Chairperson of the Criminology Centre at National Law University(NLU), Delhi who is also one of the members of the Panel.
The Bureau of Police Research Development recently in a manual on cyber harassment cases for investigating agencies defined Hate Speech as. “language that denigrates, insults, threatens or targets an individual based on their identity and other traits (such as sexual orientation or disability or religion etc.).”
“The committee is examining a gamut of subjects pertaining to reforms in the IPC. Instead of ad hoc changes, it was decided that all the pending issues such as those on hate speech as recommended by the Viswanathan committee can be examined and comprehensive changes are brought in,” said a Home Ministry official.
Acting upon the recommendations of the committee headed by former Lok Sabha Secretary General T.K Vishwanathan, which was formed after sec 66A of Information and Technology Act 2000 that provided punishment for sending offensive messages through communication services was scrapped by the Apex court in 2015, the Home Ministry in 2018 had written to Law Commission that a direct law for online “Hate Speech” be made.
The Panel will be submitting its report soon.