AAP welcomes SC judgment on Section 66A

In a statement, the party said: "The Aam Aadmi Party welcomes decision of the Supreme Court to strike down Section 66A of the IT Act. The court has rightly ruled that the section was violative of our constitutional right to free speech."

"Restrictions can only be put in place in cases of incitement to violence, not mere 'offense and annoyance'. We are happy that the bizarrely implemented Section 66A which had criminalized class XI students and netizens worried about being 'annoying' and 'inconvenient' has been struck down by the Supreme Court," the party said.

"Ideally all the political parties should have joined hands to remove this section of the IT Act. It's sad that despite repeated instances of misuse of this draconian section, political parties failed to build consensus to bring an amendment to the IT Act and the Supreme Court had to intervene," the AAP said.

The AAP said: "We congratulate the apex court for defending our fundamental rights, which had been curtailed by both the NDA and the UPA on pretext of securing of public order. We also condemn the two-faced opportunism of the NDA government that spoke out against section 66A while in opposition, only to defend it both in court and in parliament after assuming power."

Delhi Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal also welcomed the judgement and tweeted: "Section 66A scrapped. A big day for freedom of speech n expression."

In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down the Section 66A of IT Act.

The apex court hold the section violative of 19(1) A of the Constitution which guarantees the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression to citizens.

The verdict on the issue was pronounced by a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Rohinton F Nariman.

Under this section, the police had the power to arrest people for posting objectionable content online.