Maharashtra Committee Proposes BNS Amendment to Criminalize Social Media Defamation

Gist A Maharashtra government committee has proposed a state-level amendment to the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita BNS to explicitly criminalize defamatory social media posts. This legislative intervention attempts to regulate digital speech without recreating the constitutional flaws that caused the Supreme Court to invalidate Section 66A of the Information Technology IT Act . For civil services aspirants, this serves as a practical demonstration of how state governments navigate the Concurrent List to modify central criminal statutes, balancing content regulation against fundamental free speech rights. Background - The Era of Section 66A: Prior to 2015 , Section 66A of the Information Technology IT Act governed digital speech by criminalizing messages sent through computer resources that were deemed "grossly offensive" or "menacing." - The Shreya Singhal Judgment: The Supreme Court invalidated this provision in the landmark Shreya Singhal vs Union of India 2015 case, ruling that its vague and overbroad terminology violated the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19 1 a . - Limitations of the BNS: The recently enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita BNS contains broad definitions of…