The Centre today filed its affidavit before the Supreme Court, and stated that it wanted to re-examine and re-consider the provisions of Section 124-A (Sedition law) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The Centre said to re-examine and re-consider the sedition law, in the spirit of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav and the vision of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.
“We decid to re-examine & reconsider the provisions of Section 124-A IPC,” the Centre said and urged it to “await the exercise…to be undertaken by the GOI before an appropriate forum where such reconsideration is constitutionally permitted.
The Government of India has filed the affidavit in response in the Sedition matter stating that there are divergence of views expressed in public domain by various jurist, academicians, intellectuals and citizens in general.
The Centre submitted that the Prime Minister of India has been cognizant of various views expressed on the subject and has also expressed his views on various forums.
“The PM believes that at a time when our nation is marking ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ we need to, as a nation, work even harder to shed colonial baggage that has passed its utility, which includes outdated colonial laws and practices,” the Centre said.
It submitted that the Govt has scrapped over 1500 outdated laws since 2014-15 and has also ended over 25000 compliance burdens which were causing unnecessary hurdles to people of our country. Various offences which were causing mindless hindrances to people have been de-criminalised.
The Govt submitted that being fully cognizant of various views being expressed on the subject the govt has decided to re-examine and re-consider the provisions of Section 124A of IPC and had asked the court to not invest time in examining the validity of the law and await the exercise of reconsideration.
It is to be noted that on May 7, the Central Government had filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court in the batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of sedition law stating that the sedition law needed no reconsideration.
Filing the affidavit before the Supreme Court, the Central government had said that the judgement in Kedar Nath Singh against State of Bihar is a good law and needs no reconsideration.
“We have gone through the entire case. Our reply is this. This judgement in Kedar Nath Singh against State of Bihar is a good law and needs no reconsideration,” the Centre stayed in its affidavit filed before the Supreme Court.
The affidavit further stated that the judgement must be treated as binding precedent requiring no reference.
The petitioners in the case had challenged the constitutional validity of the Sedition law are: Editors Guild of India (EGI), former Major-General S G Vombatkere, Trinamool Congress (TMC) Member of Parliament- Mahua Moitra, Anil Chamadia, journalist, Patricia Mukhim and many others.
The section 124-A (Sedition law) of the IPC deals with any speech that brings or to bring into hatred or contempt or disaffection towards the government established by law in India a criminal offence punishable with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Former Union minister of Information Technology (IT) and veteran journalist, Arun Shourie also moved the Supreme Court in the issue and filed a petition before it and said that sedition law is violative of Articles 14 and 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India.
