DNA Explainer: Challenges on sedition law and interpretation of Supreme Court order

In a significant development, India's Supreme Court on Wednesday put a controversial colonial-era sedition law on hold. Critics of this law often say that it is used by a government to stifle dissent. The Supreme Court judges, hearing the case asked the Centre to refrain from registering any new cases which invoke sedition until it finishes hearing petitions challenging it.

The apex court also asked the authorities to pause all existing sedition trials. The top court went on to say that those already charged under the law, and in jail, could seek bail from trial courts. On Tuesday, the government representative said in the Supreme Court that they would review the law after earlier defending it.

Read | What is sedition law, Section 124 A? What does Supreme Court's order mean?

In the recent past and also during previous governments, they have been accused of using the law against critics, such as opposition politicians, journalists and activists. However, it is too early to celebrate are there are many challenges before the Supreme Court and the government.

The challenges

1. The Supreme Court is shifting the burden of deciding the validity of the law to the government. The Supreme Court has put the onus on the government to ensure that frivolous cases of sedition are not filed to misuse the law. 

2. The government is yet to make it clear whether Parliament or a separate committee will review the sedition law. The central government told the court it would issue a directive to states and Union Territories on the new application of the sedition law.

3. The significant legal question before the Supreme Court is whether the 1962 ruling in Kedar Nath Singh Vs Union of India was correctly decided. The Kedar Nath Singh ruling, which upheld the constitutional validity of Section 124A, held that speech that is likely to incite disruption of public order would amount to sedition.

4. The correctness of that verdict, crucially whether a law on sedition can be an exception to free speech, will have to be decided by a seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court.

5. Even diluting the provision of sedition law or replacing it with a new law will have to pass the test of constitutionality before the court.

What the Supreme Court said

1. Both the petitioners and the attorney general of India have pointed out instances when this law has been misused, the court noted.

2. SC hopes and expect that the State and Central Governments will restrain from registering any FIR, continuing any investigation or taking any coercive measures by invoking Section 124A of IPC while the aforesaid provision of law is under hearing.

3. All pending trials, appeals and proceedings in sedition cases have been put in abeyance.

4. Union of India has been given the liberty to issue the Directive as proposed and placed before SC, to the State Governments/Union Territories to prevent any misuse of Section 124A of IPC.

Facts related to the law

1. The offence under sedition law is punishable by a fine or a maximum sentence of life in prison, or both.

2. People charged under the law have to surrender their passports, are not eligible for government jobs and must produce themselves in court whenever required.

3. In 1962, the Supreme Court had imposed limits on the use of the law, but critics say the governments continue to flout these restrictions with impunity.

4. Bal Gangadhar Tilak was the first person to be convicted under the law over publications in his newspapers.

5. In later years, Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned under the sedition law for writings in Young India.

6. The 1962 Supreme Court ruling in the Kedar Nath case is considered a landmark verdict on the sedition law. A five-judge bench upheld the constitutional validity of the law but clarified that criticism of the government cannot be labelled sedition unless accompanied by a call for violence.

7. What we call the sedition law is not a separate Act by Parliament. In the form of Section 124A, it’s part of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that covers all substantive aspects of criminal law in India. 

8. Section 124A was originally drafted in 1870 by Thomas Macaulay, the man credited for bringing English education in India. The word 'sedition' itself is, however, not mentioned in the IPC section.