No further delay

Govt must speed up sedition law review

It has been almost a year since the Supreme Court ordered the government to put on hold all sedition trials and stop registering cases under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code until it had completed a review of the provision. The order was seen as a reprieve for politicians, activists, journalists, and dissidents arrested under this law; they can now formally seek bail for this hitherto non-bailable law, which carries a penalty of imprisonment between three years and a life term with or without a fine. As such, the apex court’s order last year was widely regarded as a prelude to its repeal. Now, those hopes appear to be dimming with the government informing the Supreme Court that its consultations with stakeholders were at “an advanced stage”. The hearing of the case, filed by two journalists in February 2021, challenging the constitutionality of Section 124A, has now been adjourned till the second week of August. This delay by the government leaves in limbo a law that had been increasingly applied with growing alacrity by both the Central and state governments as a means of staunching inconvenient opposition to their policies.

It is difficult to see why the government needs to engage itself in consultations for so long when the issue at hand is simple. This prolonged process underlines the government’s studied reluctance in the past to engage with the issue until the Supreme Court’s order. The attorney general has informed the court the government is “keen to push reform”. Quite what reform the government is contemplating is unclear. More so when it is becoming increasingly evident that Section 124A, introduced by colonial rulers to stifle dissent against their exploitative practices, has no place in the statute book of a country whose champions of independence suffered under this law. India’s choice of a democratic constitution that committed the country to freedom of expression and thought is at odds with such a law. In short, the Section must be read down from the statute book.

Part of the problem with this law is the ambiguity of a 60-year-old Supreme Court judgment —Kedar Nath versus State of Bihar — that upheld the legality of Section 124A, but made its application conditional on whether the content induced discontent and insurrection, or incited the public to violence. These somewhat loose conditions provided the state the space to interpret the law as widely as possible to arrest dissidents. Equally, the caveat has made it difficult for the state to secure conviction. Between 2015 and 2020, for instance, 356 cases were filed under the sedition law and 548 people arrested, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. Yet only 12 people were convicted. The petitioners have asked for the Section to be reviewed by a seven-judge Bench (the Kedar Nath ruling was passed by a five-judge Bench). As long as the Section remains active on the statute book, it offers state actors an instrument to suppress critics. The Supreme Court should brook no further delay.