Supreme Court (SC) questions the Government regarding the continuation of draconian sedition law

In News

On 15th July 2021, CJI NV Ramana strongly remarked the Government that sedition law is being misused by authorities for violating the freedom of speech, life and liberty and SC is fully convinced that now it should be discontinued.

About

CJI has said that section 124A (Sedition) of Indian Penal Court should have been abolished by now because the court feels that it has been misused by judicial authorities to control freedom of speech and liberty. The court has questioned the need for the continuance of the Sedition law that was a colonial provision.

The court will have to re-evaluate the validity of this judgement in the modern context when the State is itself using a corrective law to thrust serious burdens on free speech.

The CJI gave this remark because of rising number of cases on the ground of sedition from 2016 to 2019.

National Crime Records Bureau reports show that in 2019, 21 cases of sedition were closed on account of no evidence; two were closed being false cases and six cases were related to civil disputes.

Recent Occurrences of Sedition

Latest sedition cases registered are against climate activist Disha Ravi, filmmaker Aisha Sultana and journalists Vinod Dua and Siddique Kappan.

The CJI came up with his view due to the resolve shown by the Supreme Court in recent months to examine the sedition law.

SC said that it was the time to limit the law of sedition and marked the indiscriminate use of the sedition law against people who vent out their grievances about the government’s COVID management, or even for seeking help to gain medical access, equipment, drugs and oxygen cylinders, especially during the second wave of the pandemic.

Another case noted by Supreme Court was that while considering a petition filed by two TV channels, TV5 and ABN, against the Andhra Pradesh government for using the sedition law to ‘silence’ them. The CJI Bench issued notice on 15th July to the government on a petition filed by the Editors Guild of India to revoke the sedition law.

Justice U.U. Lalit, in his recent judgment repealing a sedition case against Mr. Dua for his presumed remarks about the Prime Minister and the Union Government in a YouTube telecast,supported the right of every journalist to criticise, even viciously, the measures of the government with a view to improve or alter them through legal means.

The judgement said that the time is bygone when the mere criticism of governments was enough to constitute sedition. The right to utter honest and reasonable criticism is a source of strength to a society rather than a weakness.