BREAKING| SEDITION- Supreme Court Agrees To Centre's Proposal To Defer Hearing Till It Reconsiders Section 124A, Seeks Response On Pending And Future Cases

The Supreme Court on Tuesday has agreed with the Centre's suggestion to defer the hearing of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the offence of sedition under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code till it reconsiders the provision. The Court has sought the response of the Centre on the status of pending and future cases till the Govt. takes a decision.A special bench comprising the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli was considering the preliminary issue as to whether a reference to a larger bench is required, as a 5-judge bench in Kedar Nath Singh vs State of Bihar had retained the section after reading it down."Mr.Mehta, we are making it very clear. We want instructions. We will give you time till tomorrow. Our specific queries are, about the pending cases and how government will take care of future cases. These are the two issues on which we want the government to respond," the Bench orally remarked. The main contention raised by the petitioner was if an adjournment was indeed granted, how the interests of people who are already booked under Section 124A can be protected and if future cases can be kept abeyance till reconsideration is over. The Solicitor General has been asked to get instructions on this.This matter will be taken up tomorrow. When the bench assembled today, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta submitted that the Centre had filed a reply informing the court that it has chosen to reexamine and reconsider Section 124A of the IPC.In this affidavit, the Union had prayed that the Court may not invest its tie in examining the validity of the impugned Section once again and be pleased to await the exercise of consideration to be undertaken by the Government before an appropriate forum where such consideration is constitutionally permitted.Solicitor General argued that this reconsideration will be at the level of the executive because the sovereignty and integrity of the nation are involved in the case. Nobody can say penal offence should not be there, he added while praying that the hearing may be deferred. Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal retorted that the exercise of this Court cannot be stopped merely because the legislature will take time to reconsider the issue for another 6 months or even a year and thereby took strong objection to the Centre's affidavit. He asserted that it was for the judiciary to examine the constitutionality of law.The Court found force in this submission and stated that the notice in this case was issued months ago and even when the case was taken up for the last hearing the Centre had taken the stand that there was no need to reconsider the law. CJI asked the Centre to give an estimate of how long this exercise of reconsideration would take. The SG responded that the impugned provision has been in existence for over 100 years while pointing out that as soon as notice was issued, cognizance was taken in the matter. Regarding the time, he stated that he could not give an accurate reply. It was submitted that the process had been initiated already and that from the tenor and spirit of the affidavit, it was evident that there was an application of mind involved in the process. The bench opined that when the State says they want to do something, the court should not be unreasonable and hinted that it will decide on how much time can be granted. However, Sibal objected to this pointing out that in the meantime people were getting arrested.Meanwhile, Senior Advocate Gopal Shankaranarayanan submitted that the affidavit of the Centre cannot speak for the Parliament. He added that there is another disturbing aspect, pointing out that there is a pattern followed by the Centre in such sensational cases by taking the examples of the Right to Privacy and marital rape cases.The CJI noted that in the affidavit, it was pointed out that the Prime Minister has been cognizant of the issues relating to civil liberties and that he believes at a time of the 75th year of independence, the nation wants to shed colonial baggage including outdated colonial laws. CJI Ramana added that in this background, the court should not appear to be unreasonable. He admitted that there are several concerns regarding the pending cases and the misuse of the provision. Turning to the Solicitor General, the CJI recollected that the Attorney General had previously submitted the recent issue of a sedition case being booked even for chanting Hanuman Chalisa and asked how these issues could be protected. To this, the SG submitted that the filing of FIRs and investigation were done by the State Governments and not the Centre. Whenever there is a misuse, there are constitutional safeguards, he said. The Court said it was not reasonable to push everyone with a grievance to the courts and to the jails"We can't ask everyone to go attend the courts and be in jail for fee months. When Govt itself has shown concerns about misuse how will you protect them? We have...

BREAKING| SEDITION- Supreme Court Agrees To Centre's Proposal To Defer Hearing Till It Reconsiders Section 124A, Seeks Response On Pending And Future Cases

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