News Analysis | Sedition: CJI’s observations in July show SC has taken judicial notice of misuse
The Hindu
A 2015 judgment had called for striking down of vague laws which choke free speech and shackle personal liberty
Law Minister Kiren Rijiju’s reply in Parliament that there is no proposal to scrap sedition from the penal code comes almost five months after Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana made scathing remarks in open court to the Government about the chilling effect of the “colonial law” which suppresses the freedoms of ordinary people.
In a hearing on July 15, the CJI compared the use of sedition (Section 124A of the IPC) to a tool given to a carpenter “to cut a piece of wood and he uses it to cut the entire forest itself”.
The CJI had wondered why a democracy needed a law which was used by the British to imprison Mahatma Gandhi and Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
With the clock ticking down to the Lok Sabha election counting day on Tuesday, opposing fronts are perceptibly edgy and poised to continue the rancorous skirmishing that marked the campaign season in Kerala. The United Democratic Front, led by the Congress, is seemingly basking in the “interim victory” granted by various exit polls. The UDF discerns that its poll strategy of turning the polls foremostly into a damning referendum on the Left Democratic Front government’s perceived failures rather than BJP’s “divisive politics” at the national level stood a fighting chance of paying off.