"To Buy Time": Trinamool's Mahua Moitra Shreds Centre's New Plan On Sedition Law

Mahua Moitra, one of the petitioners, said, "This is basically to say 'stay off, we will do what we want to do', and they will sit on it for years and years"

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, one of the petitioners who called for the colonial-era sedition law to be scrapped, told NDTV today that the government's sudden move to decide on a review of the law is "just a ploy to buy time". The matter, she said, deserves to be referred to a seven-judge bench.

"This is partly the same thing they did with the marital rape issue in Delhi High Court. The (sedition) law has been there was 150 years. They have been in power for nearly eight years. If they wanted to do something, they (could have)... it is that now they realise there is an actual possibility of this (law) being examined by a larger bench, a seven judge bench... so they do this to buy time," she told NDTV in an exclusive interview.

"This is basically to say 'stay off, we will do what we want to do', and they will sit on it for years and years," she added.

The Centre today told the Supreme Court -- where the sedition law has been challenged by Ms Moitra and several other petitioners -- that it has decided to review the legislation, two days after firmly defending the law.