ABU DHABI If Indians can now tweet and post online comments without fear of getting arrested, they owe their freedom of expression partly to a Dubai-based IT entrepreneur.
Javed Farooqui, 41, is one of the founding directors of Mumbai-based Mouthshut.com that is one of the first companies to file a writ petition in the Supreme Court contesting Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 that curbed free speech online. “It is victory of the common man’s right to be heard. And I am proud to be one among those who fought for free speech in India,” Farooqui, who is also CEO of Direct Information Technology based in Dubai, told XPRESS.
Section66A
Mouthshut, a consumer generated review portal, is co-owned by Farooqui and his brother Faisal Farooqui. The apex court’s decision to scrap Section 66A has been widely hailed in India as a seminal move in upholding the fundamental rights of speech and expression.
66A came under the hammer from free speech campaigners after people got arrested for contentious online posts.
Farooqui said their company was getting into legal tussles too often after the IT Act was amended in 2009 making offensive content a crime. “Mouthshut is an online platform where people can post their comments about products and services. But whenever there were negative reviews, we were asked to take them down.”
The company started getting hundreds of legal notices from companies and service providers.
