PIL in SC seeks to dismiss sediton case lodged in Bidar school play case

A public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the Supreme Court on Thursday has sought to quash an FIR registered for sedition in Karnataka's Bidar against a school, a teacher and a widowed parent for enacting a play critical of CAA, NRC and NPR.

The petition, filed by Yogita Bhayana through her lawyer Utsav Singh Bains, will come up for hearing on Friday.

It also sought to pass a mechanism to deal with the misuse of the sedition law by the governments.

The petition, further quoting the principal of the school, alleged that on one occasion police officers in uniform questioned students with no child welfare officials present.

On February 14, the bail was granted to two women who had been arrested in the case in which a school was sealed allegedly after students performed a play against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The school's principal and the mother of one of the students, who acted in the play had been booked under sedition charges after students staged the play during Republic Day celebrations in January this year.

In the play, the participants were shown staging an anti-CAA sequence where there were dialogues encouraging non-cooperation with anyone asking for documents. A case was also registered against the school management.