Kathmandu, Feb. 19 -- The Supreme Court has said that the imprisonment and hefty fines provisioned in the Electronic Transaction Act are not against the Constitution of Nepal.

Passing a verdict on a writ petition for scrapping Section 47 of the Act, the Constitutional Bench of the court said that freedom of opinion and expression, despite being fundamental, is not absolute. Hence, the state can impose lawful curbs.

Advocate Pratyush Nath Upreti had moved the court demanding a nullification of the section, arguing that it contradicted Article 17 of the constitution which guarantees freedom of opinion and expression.

However, the five-member bench led by then-chief justice Bishowambhar Prasad Shrestha refused to accept the argument, ruli...