Why in news?
- The Law Commission is in the process of revisiting the section 124-A of Indian Penal Code.
- It calls for a thorough reconsideration and presents the various issues related to it before the public for a national debate.
What is Sec 124 A of IPC?
- Sec 124-A deals with sedition, and was introduced by the British colonial government in 1870.
- It says that the act of Sedition is to bring hatred or contempt towards the Government established by law in India.
- In this case, the punishment may be of imprisonment for life and fine, or imprisonment for 3 years and fine.
- It was actually brought to suppress the freedom struggle prevalent then.
What does the previous Law Commission report say?
- In an earlier report in 1968, the Law Commission had rejected the idea of repealing the Section.
- In 1971, the panel wanted the scope of the section to be expanded.
- It called for covering the Constitution, the legislature and the judiciary, in addition to the 'government to be established by law'.
- It meant that ‘disaffection’ against all these institutions should not be tolerated.
- The only dilution it mooted was to modify the wide gap between the two jail terms prescribed (either three years or life).
- It called for fixing the maximum sanction at seven years’ rigorous imprisonment with fine.
What are the concerns?
- Purpose - It is an irony to retain a provision that was used extensively to suppress the freedom struggle.
- It is to be noted that, Britain itself abolished it 10 years ago.
- Also, there have been repeated instances of misuse of the Section.
- Definition - The foremost objection is that the definition of sedition remains too wide.
- Under the present law, it offers scope to consider as seditious
- strong criticism against government policies and personalities
- slogans voicing disapprobation of leaders
- depictions of an unresponsive or insensitive regime
- In recent times the core principle enunciated by the Supreme Court in this regard has been forgotten.
- It specifies that incitement to violence or tendency to create public disorder are the essential ingredients of the offence.
What is the way forward?
- As long as sedition is seen as a reasonable restriction on free speech on the ground of preserving public order, it will be difficult to contain its mischief.
- There are thus two ways of undoing the harm that sedition provision does to citizens’ fundamental rights:
- It can be amended so that there is a much narrower definition of what constitutes sedition
- The second and best course is to repeal the section altogether
Source: The Hindu
