<p>When a would-be lawyer Shreya Singhal walked into the Supreme Court to file a petition seeking the scrapping of Section 66A, she might not have imagined that it would come this way.<br /><br />However, at the first hearing itself on November 29, 2012, she had reasons to be optimistic about the outcome as then Chief Justice Altamas Kabir said: “We were wondering why no one has approached the Supreme Court over this and even thought of taking up the issue suo motu.”<br /><br />Law and courts were not new for her – her mother is a Supreme Court lawyer while her grandmother Sunanda Bhandare was a judge.<br /><br />She struck at the idea of approaching the court on Section 66A after the arrest of two young girls – Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Srinivasan – who questioned the shut down in Mumbai following the death of Bal Thackeray.</p>.<p>Shreya had just returned from Britain after a three-year course in astrophysics and was looking at admissions into law schools when she found a cause to fight. <br />Her family encouraged her on taking on the matter. Her mother Manali guided her through the legal formalities.<br /><br />She knows the importance of the judgement. <br /><br />“It is a big victory. No one should fear not putting something up due to a fear of jail. There are other provisions in IT act, if there is a hate speech, you will be dealt under those provisions,” she said on Tuesday.</p>
<p>When a would-be lawyer Shreya Singhal walked into the Supreme Court to file a petition seeking the scrapping of Section 66A, she might not have imagined that it would come this way.<br /><br />However, at the first hearing itself on November 29, 2012, she had reasons to be optimistic about the outcome as then Chief Justice Altamas Kabir said: “We were wondering why no one has approached the Supreme Court over this and even thought of taking up the issue suo motu.”<br /><br />Law and courts were not new for her – her mother is a Supreme Court lawyer while her grandmother Sunanda Bhandare was a judge.<br /><br />She struck at the idea of approaching the court on Section 66A after the arrest of two young girls – Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Srinivasan – who questioned the shut down in Mumbai following the death of Bal Thackeray.</p>.<p>Shreya had just returned from Britain after a three-year course in astrophysics and was looking at admissions into law schools when she found a cause to fight. <br />Her family encouraged her on taking on the matter. Her mother Manali guided her through the legal formalities.<br /><br />She knows the importance of the judgement. <br /><br />“It is a big victory. No one should fear not putting something up due to a fear of jail. There are other provisions in IT act, if there is a hate speech, you will be dealt under those provisions,” she said on Tuesday.</p>
