Last November, police in Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh arrested 25-year-old Sattar Khan for allegedly making offensive remarks about the RSS chief on social media. Reacting to pressure from angry protestors, the police filed a criminal case against Khan. But months later, the police were in a fix. “We don’t know how to proceed because we came to know later that the Section 66A was struck down by the SC [Supreme Court],” a police officer told the Indian Express.

The police officer’s dilemma shows the huge gap between judicial pronouncements by courts and their implementation on the ground.