End the debate – Law Commission’s recommendation to retain sedition laws in India | 8th June 2023 | UPSC Daily Editorial Analysis

What's the article about?

• It analyses the Law Commission’s recent recommendation to retain sedition laws in India with some safeguards.

Relevance:

• GS2: Government Policies and Interventions for Development in various sectors and Issues arising out of their Design and Implementation;
• Essay;
• Prelims

Historical Background of the Sedition Law:

• Sedition laws were enacted in 17th century England when lawmakers believed that only good opinions of the government should survive, as bad opinions were detrimental to the government and monarchy.
• The law on sedition is a hangover from India’s colonial past. It was originally drafted by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1837 but was inexplicably omitted when the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was enacted in 1860.
• Section 124A was inserted in 1870 by an amendment introduced by Sir James Stephen when it felt the need for a specific section to deal with the offence.
• It was then used as a tool to oppress the freedom movement and suppress all forms of dissent by Indians against British rule.

Current Status of Sedition Law:

• Sedition is a crime under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
• It defines sedition as an offence committed when “any person 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”.

Analysis:

• The Law Commission’s recommendation that the offence of sedition be retained in penal law is opposite to the present political and judicial thinking that the country may not need this colonial vestige any more.
• The validity of the Section 124A of the IPC, was upheld by the Supreme Court as far back as 1962, but with the reservation that it would be a constitutionally permissible restriction on free speech, only if the offence was restricted to words that had a tendency to incite violence or cause public disorder.
• However, legal experts have pointed out that the panel’s report fails to consider how far free speech jurisprudence has travelled since then.
• While keeping pending sedition cases in abeyance last year, the Court had observed that “the rigours of Section 124A of IPC are not in tune with the current social milieu”.
• The Commission has sought to address two concerns usually raised about sedition: its rampant misuse and its relevance to the present day.
• It has repeated the hackneyed argument that a law’s misuse is no ground to withdraw it. However, what it has failed to consider is that its very existence on the statute affords great scope for its unjustified use, often with deliberate intent to suppress dissent and imprison critics.
• It is doubtful if a mere prior sanction requirement, as mooted in the report, or a mandatory preliminary probe, will lead to fewer sedition cases.
• Further, the panel has argued that the fact that something is a colonial-era provision is no ground to discard it.
• It has justified the need to keep sedition on the penal statute by citing the various extremist and separatist movements and tendencies in the country, as well as the “ever-proliferating role of social media in propagating radicalisation”.
• This may not be a sufficient reason to retain it, as divisive propaganda, incitement to violence and imputations affecting social harmony can be curbed by other penal provisions.

Way Forward:

• Notwithstanding the report, the government should consider the thorough review of the provision as the present time is very different.