On Monday, the Apex Court granted 2 weeks’ time to the Centre to make its stand clear on a plea challenging the constitutional validity of Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code which penalises sedition.
A bench of Justices U U Lalit and Ajay Rastogi deferred the hearing after solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, sought time to file an affidavit. The Court also asked attorney general KK Venugopal, who was also issued notice on the plea, to file his response on the issue.
Six decades after upholding the constitutional validity of Section 124A of IPC, the Supreme Court had in May agreed to examine whether the verdict needed a re-look & whether the penal provision has lost its relevance in the present condition.
The plea has been filed by 2 journalists who challenged the validity of the penal provision which prescribes punishment of up to life imprisonment.
The journalists, who are themselves facing sedition charges for allegedly voicing against political leaders & had to spend months in jail, pleaded that the law had outlived its utility & it was being misused by people in power against those who criticise them. They contended that many countries, including England, which had introduced sedition law in India, have scrapped the penal provision pertaining to the offence of sedition & pleaded the court to re-examine the law in the present context. They alleged that the validity of Section 124A was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1962 as it was the need of the hour to prevent public violence & public disorder that fell short of waging war against the state.
The plea said that "Section 124A, was, at the time a necessary tool in crime control. It is conceivable that if sedition had been held unconstitutional in 1962, there may have been a lacuna in the law, the mischief — public disorder & violence — going unpunished. Co
ntrastingly, in 2021, this is not the case. Alternative, less intrusive legislations are now available. The last nearly sixty years have seen extensive enactment of new legislations dealing directly with safety & security, public disorder & terrorism. Prominent among these are the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Public Safety Act & the National Security Act. Various sections of these Acts deal directly with the overt conduct that sedition seeks to make penal — inciting violence & public disorder".
While upholding the validity of Section 124A, a Constitution bench of the apex court in Kedar Nath Singh v. State of Bihar case read down the section & held that acts involving intention or tendency to create disorder, or disturbance of law & order, or incitement to violence would be made penal by Section 124A.
Referring to the misuse of Section 124A, the petitioner journalists — Manipur-based 41-year-old Kishorechandra Wangkhemcha & 53-year-old Chhattisgarh-based Kanhaiya Lal Shukla — alleged the number of sedition cases registered across the country doubled from 35 in 2016 to 75 in 2018 but no charge sheets were filed in over 70% of the cases, & only 4 of the 43 cases where the trial has been completed resulted in convictions.
source ; /timesofindia.
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