The Supreme Court is scheduled on September 12 to hear a series of petitions challenging the legality of the sedition law.
The hearing follows sweeping changes proposed in criminal law by the government with the introduction of three new Bills in the Parliament. One of them, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill, seeks to replace the colonial Indian Penal Code (IPC) of 1860. The other two are Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita 2023, meant to replace the Criminal Procedure Code, and Bharatiya Sakshya Bill 2023, in place of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.
Section 124A is part of the IPC. Its use had been kept in abeyance following a Supreme Court order in May 2022. The court had given the government time to re-look the sedition law.
Though the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill does not explicitly have a Section 124A in it, it has Section 150. This proposed provision in the new Bill avoids using the term ‘sedition’, but describes the offence as “endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India”.
‘Final stage’
When the petitions had come up for hearing previously in the Supreme Court on May 1, 2023, the government had vaguely told a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud that the “process of re-examination” of Section 124A (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code and consultations were in its “final stage”. The three new Bills were introduced in August. It hopes to get the Bills passed in the Parliament in the winter session.
If that is the case, the petition may become infructuous as Section 124A any way ceases to exist.
In May last year, the court, in an interim order, had suspended the use of Section 124A, stalling pending criminal trials and court proceedings under Section 124A across the country.
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A battery of lawyers appearing for the petitioners, including senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, advocates Kaleeswaram Raj, P.B. Suresh, Vipin Nair and Prasanna S., had been urging the apex court to strike down sedition as an offence in any form.
