Government To Reconsider Sedition Law, Centre Tells Supreme Court

The Union government on Monday told the Supreme Court that a competent forum would re-examine and re-consider sedition law. 

The government said in an affidavit that it has decided to reconsider several colonial-era laws and IPC's Section 124A, which criminalises sedition, is one of them.

Bar and Bench quoted the affidavit as saying, "The Government of India being fully cognizant of various views being expressed on the subject of sedition and also having considered the concerns of civil liberties and human rights, while committed to maintain and protect the sovereignty and integrity of this great nation, has decided to reexamine and reconsider the provisions of Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code which can be done only before the competent forum."

The government further urged the apex court to not invest time in the petition at the moment and wait for the government's reconsideration.

The development has come in the proceedings in a clutch a petitions filed by journalists, activists, NGOs, and political leaders that challenges the constitutional validity of IPC's Section 124A. 

Earlier on May 5, a Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli had said that it would hear arguments on May 10 on the legal question of whether the pleas challenging sedition penal law be referred to a larger bench for reconsidering the 1962 verdict of a five-judge constitution bench in the Kedar Nath Singh case — the apex court had upheld the sedition law in the case. 

(With PTI inputs)