Rinu Srinivasan, one of the two Palghar girls whose arrest under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act drew widespread outrage in 2012, said justice has been finally delivered to her with Supreme Court declaring the provision unconstitutional.

In November 2012, Rinu and her friend Shaheen Dhada, were arrested by the Thane Police for a Facebook post criticising a bandh imposed by the Shiv Sena after its chief Bal Thackeray’s death. Her doctor uncle’s orthopaedic hospital was also vandalised by a mob.

Even though the Palghar court quashed the case against the two following public furore, Rinu as well as Shaheen’s family members who spoke to The Hindu and said the incident had caused them considerable mental agony and affected their lives in other ways.

Rinu, for instance, had to defer her admission in an audio engineering diploma programme in Kerala by six months. Shaheen’s father Farukh Dhada, too, said that even though the family always stood by Shaheen, a police case against a family member leaves a stigma.

“Even though violating Section 66A of the IT Act was a bailable offence, the police also slapped the non-bailable Section 295-A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage reli­gious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or reli­gious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code compounding our problems. This was unwarranted,” said Mr. Dhada. He also said no compensation was paid to the family.

In July 2014, the National Human Rights Commission had directed the Maharashtra government to compensate Rs. 50,000 each to the two women.

Even though both families were critical of the now quashed provision, Rinu said some restriction on online content was justified.

“Posts should not be abusive. Of course, in arresting us, the police did a grave injustice as there was nothing offensive in Shaheen’s post. This can’t be said about every post as there are many which are vulgar and indecent,” she said adding that since the incident, she has been extra cautious about what she posted.