Maharashtra to reissue sedition circular

MUMBAI: Facing flak from the Bombay High Court, the Maharashtra government on Tuesday decided to withdraw its controversial circular on sedition. Maharashtra additional chief secretary (home) KP Bakshi said the government would issue a fresh circular with corrections.

The Maharashtra government's circular on guidelines to be followed by police officials for filing sedition cases was considered controversial as it said that any criticism against the government or those in the government could be taken as sedition.

However, in a huge embarrassment to the state on Tuesday, the high court restrained the government from acting on its circular after two petitions were filed questioning the constitutional validity of the circular.

Responding to the Bombay HC order, Bakshi said, "The issue pertained to a translation mistake as the English circular was fine.The problem was with the Marathi circular as the law department had verbatim translated the English circular into Marathi, which caused the problem. So, we have decided to rectify the mistakes in the Marathi copy and we will submit it first to the Bombay High Court before issuing it."

The controversial August 27 circular informed police officials that sedition cases can be filed can be filed against those who, `by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representation or otherwise, bring or attempt to bring into hatred or contempt, dissatisfaction and provoking violence against the central or the state government“.