Judicious shot in the arm for liberty

The Supreme Court’s seeming inclination to hold Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), relating to sedition, to be unfit for Independent India is most welcome. The provision, brought in in 1870 and used against Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mohandas Gandhi, should have been removed long ago. However, there are other sections of the IPC and other draconian laws that lend themselves to easy misuse to suppress dissent, on par with Section 124A. All such laws cannot be scrapped. Therefore, it is vital that stringent penalties be placed on the police and the lower judiciary that frame charges under provisions of the law that do not deserve nor were intended to be used against mere critics of the government, however vehement their criticism.

Between 2016 and 2019, the number of cases prosecuted under Section 124A rose 160%, and the conviction rate dropped from 33.3% to 3.3%, clearly indicating resort to facile wielding of the sedition charge as an instrument of repressing critical opinion. Other parts of the IPC, namely, Section 153, on causing enmity among groups, Section 268, on causing public annoyance, and Section 505, on inciting rebellion, are as loosely worded and ill-defined as Section 124A on causing disaffection towards the State, and liable to misuse. The National Security Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, too, are being misused, alleging terror with neither evidence or any effort to commence prosecution, to deprive critics of the government of their liberty, resulting in loss of liberty, prolonged incarceration of youth in the prime of their life, and, sometimes, in death, as in the case of Father Stan Swamy recently. Removing Section 124A, subject of egregious misuse, would be welcome, but that, by itself, would not protect liberty at the hands of an executive free to slap any charge against anyone without sufficient evidence and with impunity.

The Constituent Assembly debated and rejected being seditious as an exception to the right to free speech. Let that inform the court as it decides on the validity of the charge of sedition.