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What is a Sedition Law and its implications under Indian Law?
There have been many cases registered in India related to the sedition law, some of the examples of the recent incidents of a rally of AIMIM party leader Asaduddin Owaisi in Bangalore, where a 19-year old girl raised slogans of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ after which sedition charges were imposed on her. Other examples are of Assam where sedition charges imposed on people protesting against CAA. So, what is the meaning of sedition? Why the government imposes this charge?
The Hindi meaning of the word Sedition is ‘Deshdroh’, which means any act which encourages people to rebel against the state or government. Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) deals with the sedition law under Section 124A, it is written as –
“Whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the Government established by law in India, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, to which fine may be added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added, or with fine.”
It is a non-bailable offence which means the accused cannot be granted bail by police. Only the court has the power to grant bail.
Here the question arises that how this law has developed and from where the idea came?
In 17th century, Britain passed a law in its parliament in which no one can say against the government so that no one can revel against the British Crown. This law was not originally written in IPC in 1860 which was written by Lord Macaulay. It was added in IPC in 1870, after the Wahabi revolt of Muslims in Patna against the British. This law became famous after it was first imposed on Bal Gangadhar Tilak in 1897. Later on, it was imposed on many freedom fighters including Mahatma Gandhi because of his writings and newspaper.
Sedition and Right to speech
These two laws have always been in conflict. on one hand, the Constitution of India empowers its citizen with the right to speech under Article 19 (1) and on the other hand, the government imposes sedition law on people speaking against the state.
There have been many challenges to Sedition law. During the debate in the constitutional assembly, many people argued that now there is no need of the sedition law as it was a British law but the constitutional makers did not remove it.
It was then challenged in 1951 in Punjab High Court where it was struck down and declared unconstitutional. After some time, Allahabad High Court also gave a similar judgement. But these rights have some reasonable restrictions as well through which Constitution controls the acts of the people.
But the government moved to Supreme Court in 1962, in the case of Kedarnath Singh v. State of Bihar in which, the apex court upheld the validity of Section 124A. This case is important because the Supreme Court defined the line between Sedition law and right to speech. The court said that “every citizen has a right to say or write about the government, by way of criticism or comment, as long as it does not incite people to violence against the government established by law or with the intention of creating public disorder”.
Before this judgement, the government had the power to sue anyone who even criticises about government policy. It reduces its application.
A second important case is of Balwant Singh v. State of Punjab 1995. The case is related to the raising of slogans of ‘Khalistan Zindabad’ after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The apex court ruled that “casual raising of slogans, once or twice by two individuals alone cannot be said to be aimed at exciting or attempt to excite hatred or disaffection by the government”.
As we know, this law empowers the government to sue but with a limited application. Does it always happen in this manner? Well, the answer is No. In past one year, there have been hundreds of cases of sedition against the people protesting for Anti CAA in Uttar Pradesh. Since it is a non-bailable offence, and it becomes very difficult for people because of long trials of the courts. This law has been used to harass people.
According to the NCRB data, the cases of sedition was just double between 2015-2018 in which 332 people were imprisoned but only 7 were actually convicted.
Here the problem is not the conviction, but the term ‘anti-national’ which becomes easy for the police to arrest people by mention it as a danger to national security.
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