The Supreme Court agreeing to examine the constitutionality of the Indian Penal Code’s (IPC’s) Section 124A—the law against sedition—offers hope that the relic of the colonial era will be struck down. Two journalists, from Manipur and Chhattisgarh, have contended in a petition that the law violates Article 19 that guarantees freedom of speech and expression each journalists are facing sedition charges in their respective states, for social-media posts criticising the government.
Diminishing the scope of the law hasn’t genuinely worked. The SC, in 1962 (Kedar Nath Singh vs state of Bihar & ors), had upheld the constitutionality of the law saying Article 19(2) that imposes “reasonable restrictions on freedom of speech” protected the sedition law from the “vice of unconstitutionality”. It nonetheless circumscribed the application of the law to “acts involving intention or tendency to create disorder, or disturbance of law and order, or incitement to violence.” It even particularly narrowed down its scope in order to shield dissent, saying, “comments, however strongly worded, expressing disapprobation of actions of the Government, without exciting those feelings which generate the inclination to cause public disorder by acts of violence” wasn’t sedition. Yet, the application of the law has been, more normally than not, atavistic—reflecting the colonial-era mindset to handle political expression and curb dissent.
The indiscriminate application of the law is probably why charges also do not appear to stick normally. As per the National Crime Records Bureau, though 96 persons have been arrested for sedition in 2019, 76 have been charge-sheeted only 2 have been convicted and 29 acquitted. Cases are probably pending against the rest, but the achievement price in the concluded trials genuinely shows up the State’s efficiency in investigation and prosecution. While most political parties have talked about the need to have to scrap the law, or have at least urged that it be invoked below a pretty narrow remit of applicability, they have made use of it to silence people today for acts that cannot be termed seditious, regardless of whether it is sharing of a political cartoon or even sharing a routine protest-toolkit.
The judiciary has attempted to tame the governments’ (each states and the Centre) trigger-satisfied application of the law—indeed, in the Disha Ravi matter, the court mentioned that citizens “cannot be put behind the bars simply because they choose to disagree with the state policies. The offence of sedition cannot be invoked to minister to the wounded vanity of the governments”.
But, on the query of scrapping the law, the Centre remains non-committal in replies to Parliament concerns on the scrapping of the law, it has repeatedly maintained a cryptic “amendment of criminal laws is a continuous process” following July 2019, when it had clearly mentioned there was no proposal to scrap the law. Juxtapose this with the Union home minister’s speak of the need to have to overhaul the IPC to rid it of its “master and servant” spirit, offered it was meant to “maintain the stability of the British empire”. While there is a need to have to be vigilant and act against these endangering the nation’s safety and stability, a blunt instrument like the sedition law is not the answer—even the UK, which scripted India’s sedition law as its coloniser, appears to have realised this, scrapping its personal sedition law in 2009.