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On May 31, the Supreme Court reignited the debate on the validity of India’s sedition law. While hearing a plea moved by two Telugu TV channels seeking interim protection in a sedition case filed against them, the apex court said, “it’s time we define limits of sedition.”
What was introduced by the Colonial regime to coerce Indians to show “affection” towards the government, has in post-Independence India, become a weapon to stifle dissent and throttle free speech that seeks accountability in governance.
Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code defines sedition as “any action - whether by words, signs or visible representation - which “brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law in India.”
In Kedar Nath v. the State of Bihar (1962), the constitution bench of the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of Section 124A of the IPC. However, the court said that the offence of sedition would only be made out if the disputed speech amounts to “inciting violence against the government with the intention to create public disorder”. Therefore, a higher threshold of intentional inciting of violence was envisaged by the court.
The higher threshold set by the Supreme Court in Kedar Nath judgment has not deterred governments from misusing the sedition law for political advantage or to stifle dissent.
In 2018, the Law Commission of India in its report on the sedition law had clearly stated that for merely expressing a thought that is not in consonance with the policy of the Government of the day, a person should not be charged under sedition.
Article 14, a media portal, published a database on February 02 tracking sedition cases in India.
The database further shows that 96 per cent of sedition cases filed against 405 Indians for criticising politicians and governments over the last decade had been registered after 2014, with 149 accused of making “critical” and/or “derogatory” remarks against Modi, and 144 against Uttar Pradesh (UP) chief minister Yogi Adityanath.
The data as well as the patterns of the implementation of sedition law in India shows that merely “restricting the application” of Section 124A would not suffice. The Supreme Court needs to take into account the adverse impact of penalising dissent on the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression.
Siddharth Narrain, a lawyer and PhD scholar at the University of New South Wales, questions the need for a Colonial legacy which, in its logic, believes that people are bound to feel affection for the state. He argues that a provision that coerces people to not show any enmity, contempt, hatred or hostility towards the government established by law, has no place in a modern democratic state like India.
Narrain believes that the government files sedition charges against persons they want to target.
On May 03, the Supreme Court issued a notice in a plea moved by two journalists from Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, challenging the constitutional validity of Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code.
They have further submitted that the sedition law has been repealed in comparative post-Colonial jurisdictions around the world.
The Supreme Court will next hear the matter on July 12.
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