India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, on Tuesday, found a mention in the Supreme Court during the hearing of pleas challenging the sedition law. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who was representing the petitioners arguing about the misuse of sedition law, said that former PM Nehru had echoed similar thoughts regarding Section 124A, which criminalises sedition.
“We are in post-constitution era. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had said that this provision is obnoxious and the sooner we get rid of sedition, the better,” Sibal said.
To this, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, who was representing the Central government, responded by saying that the current government is actually acting on it.
Referring to the fact that the Central government had decided to re-examine Section 124A in view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s concern for liberties and rights, the SG said, “What Nehru couldn’t do, the current government is doing. We are trying to do what Pandit Nehru could not do then.”
The SC on Tuesday sought the Centre’s stand on keeping the pending sedition cases in abeyance to protect the interests of citizens already booked and not registering fresh cases till the government’s re-examination of the colonial-era penal law is over. It wanted a response on Wednesday.
Asking the Centre to take a clear stand after it posed the two specific queries, the top court agreed that a re-look of Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code(IPC) be left to the government, a day after it had filed an affidavit deciding to reconsider the contentious provision.
The court, however, expressed concern over the continuous abuse of the provision and even suggested that guidelines may be issued to stop the abuse or a decision to keep the sedition law in abeyance till the review exercise is completed.
The Centre’s affidavit had said it has decided to “re-examine and re-consider” the sedition law by an appropriate forum, in a change of stance just two days after stoutly defending this law, and also urged the Supreme Court not to “invest time” in examining its validity once again.
The top court, which was to decide whether a three or five-judge bench should hear the batch of pleas challenging the validity of the sedition law, took note of the fresh stand of the government.
Quoting the latest affidavit, which also referred to PM Modi’s views on issues like shedding of colonial baggage, protection of civil liberties, and respect of human rights, a bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana said, “What we feel is that the State has said they want to do something. We should not be unreasonable.”
The bench, also comprising Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, said their specific query is on two issues. One is about the pending cases and the second is, how the government will take care of future cases till the reconsideration. “These are the two issues. Nothing else.”
The bench asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to apprise the court of the Centre’s stand on Wednesday when it may pass some orders. The sedition law has been under intense public scrutiny in the recent years over its alleged misuse by authorities.
(With inputs from PTI)
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