Section 124A of IPC states that whoever “brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government in India” can be held to have committed sedition.
In normal terms, sedition is an offence when any person through its words, signs, or actions, attempts or brings any feeling of hatred or feeling of disaffection in the general public against the government is guilty of Sedition.
Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which deals with sedition, was drafted by Thomas Babington Macaulay and included in the IPC in 1870
Sedition is a cognisable, non-bailable and non-compoundable offence under the law, entailing life imprisonment as maximum punishment, with or without a fine. The penal provision came in handy to muzzle nationalist voices and demands for freedom
It is Non bailable offence. It has punishment for life or 3 years + fine or both.
Ram Nandan v. State of UP, was the first case that took the notion of the Constitutionality of Section 124A. Allahabad High Court alleged that Section 124A of IPC is Ultra Vires in nature & it violates the provision of Article 19 (1)(a) of the Constitution.
As a result, the law of sedition was incorporated under Section 124A of the IPC on November 25, 1870. The IPC (Amendment) Act, 1898 amended Section 124A, making the effort of bringing or attempting to bring hatred or contempt (besides disaffection) towards the established government punishable.
A bench comprising the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli to continue hearing TODAY on the petition challenging the Constitutional validity of Section 124A of Indian Penal Code which deals with the law of Sedition in India.
The bench will consider today the preliminary issue of whether a reference to a larger bench is required, as a 5-judge bench in the Kedar Nath decision of 1962 had retained the section after reading it down.
The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Monday through an affidavit that it has chosen to re-examine and reconsider Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code which criminalises the offence of sedition.
The Centre submitted that there are divergent views expressed in the public domain by various jurists, academicians, intellectuals and citizens in general regarding this Section.
The that spirit, the Centre submitted that it has scrapped over 1500 outdated laws since 2014-15. It has also ended over 25,000 compliance burdens which ere causing unnecessary hurdles to the people of our country. Various offences which were causing mindless hindrances to people have been decriminalised, the affidavit said.
BY ADVOCATE RAJKUMAR PAHUJA