The Supreme Court sought to know if this “colonial law” is still needed 75 years after Independence. Expressing concern over the “misuse” of the sedition law and “no accountability of executive agencies”.
Hearing a petition by Major General (retired) SG Vombatkere who has challenged Section 124A of the IPC which deals with the offence of sedition, Chief Justice of India N V Ramana turned to Attorney General K K Venugopal: “It’s a colonial law. It was meant to suppress the freedom movement. The same law was used by the British to silence Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak etc. Still, is it necessary after 75 years of independence?”.
“If you see history of charging this section, conviction rate is very low. Alarming numbers of misuse can be compared to a carpenter using a saw to cut a tree but the entire forest! Our concern is misuse of the law and no accountability of the executive. I will look into other cases referred to,” CJI Ramana observed.
“Continuation of these type of laws after 75 years…the government has repealed a number of laws now. I don’t know why you are not looking into this,” he added.
The plea, filed by Major General S G Vombatkere (Retd) submitted that Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with the offence of sedition, is wholly unconstitutional and should be “unequivocally and unambiguously struck down”.
“The petitioner contends that a statute criminalising expression based on unconstitutionally vague definitions of ‘disaffection towards Government’ etc. is an unreasonable restriction on the fundamental right to free expression guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) and causes constitutionally impermissible ‘Chilling Effect’ on speech”, the plea said.
The petition said there is need to take into account the “march of the times and the development of the law” before dealing with Section 124-A.
Earlier, a separate bench of the top court had sought response from the Centre on a plea challenging the Constitutional validity of sedition law, filed by two journalists — Kishorechandra Wangkhemcha and Kanhaiya Lal Shukla — working in Manipur and Chhattisgarh respectively.
