In July 2021, during the course of hearing a batch of petitions challenging the Constitutional validity of the sedition law, then Chief Justice of India N. V. Ramana had posed a question before the government. He had asked the Attorney General to clarify if the colonial-era law was still needed 75 years after independence. He had then noted that the law was used by the British against Mahatma Gandhi and Bal Gangadhar Tilak and was now being misused.
“The government has repealed a number of laws... I don't know why you aren't looking into it,” Ramana had observed.
If that was the sentiment expressed by the top court with regard to the 153-year-old law, the 22nd Law Commission's report on 'Usage of the Law on Sedition', which was submitted to the government recently, expresses a contrary view point with regard to Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code.
The Commission, in its report submitted recently to the Union Law Ministry, states that the law needs to be retained and has called for amendments in its provisions to “bring about more clarity in the interpretation, understanding, and usage of the provision.”
The Commission, headed by former Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, has, however, said in its report that Section 124A should be amended to align it with the Supreme Court's verdict in the Kedar Nath case in 1962, in which it was emphasised that the presence of a pernicious tendency to incite violence is a precondition to invoke the sedition clause and the penal provision cannot be used to put curbs on free speech.
It has also called for an amendment in the penal provisions, stating that the punishment provided for the offence is very odd. “It could be imprisonment of life, or else, imprisonment upto three years only, but nothing in between,” it said.
The panel's recommendation is that the legislature should give a firmer indication to the courts of the gravity of the offence by fixing the maximum punishment at seven years rigorous imprisonment and fine.
The Supreme Court had on May 11, 2022 suspended the operation of Section 124A till the government re-examined the law. The Centre had urged it to put on hold its hearing in the matter and conveyed to it its intent to re-examine the law.
As per the Commission, its report on the sedition law is in keeping with a reference received from the Union Home Ministry on March 29, 2016.
The Commission had received a reference from the Home Ministry on March 29, 2016, addressed to the Department of Legal Affairs, Law Ministry, for a study of the usage of the provision of Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code and suggest amendments, if any.
The 22nd Law Commission, constituted on November 7, 2022, took up the reference from the home ministry to study the sedition law.
It mentioned in its covering letter as it submitted the report to the law ministry that it undertook a comprehensive study of the law relating to sedition and its usage in India, tracing its genesis and development. “The Commission also analysed the history of sedition, both in colonial and independent India, the law on sedition in various jurisdictions, and the various pronouncements of the Hon'ble Supreme Court and the Hon'ble High Courts on the subject-matter,” it said.
Meanwhile, amendments in the sedition law could be brought before Parliament as early as Monsoon Session, while the Supreme Court has scheduled the next hearing in the matter in the second week of August.
The government on May 1 informed the Supreme Court that it had initiated the process of re-examining the colonial-era Sedition law. Attorney General R. Venkataramani had informed the court that the consultations on the review of Section 124A were in the final stages. It was also stated that a revised law could be tabled in the Monsoon Session of Parliament. Venkataramani had urged the court to schedule the hearing of the matter after the Monsoon Session. A bench of CJI D. Y. Chandrachud and Justice J. B. Pardiwala had taken into consideration Venkataramani's submission and posted the matter for its next hearing in the second week of August.
