Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act: what Section 2 punishes, as the Kerala High Court rules on a flag case

Background

The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act is Act No. 69 of 1971, amended in 2005 (Act No. 51 of 2005).
Section 2 covers burning, mutilating, defacing, defiling, disfiguring, destroying, trampling upon or otherwise showing disrespect to the Indian National Flag or the Constitution.
The punishment is imprisonment which may extend to three years, or fine, or both.
This is the provision invoked in the Kerala High Court's flag ruling in which the court stressed intention to insult.