Seventy-nine years old Major General SG Vombatkere (retired) is an environment and human rights activist, who moved the Supreme Court against the constitutionality of Section 124 A (Sedition). The apex court agreed to hear the case against the archaic, draconian, and controversial law by a bench headed by the Chief Justice of India along with Justice AS Bopanna and Justice Hrishikesh Roy.
While applauding the petitioner as “somebody who has sacrificed his whole life for the country”, CJI NV Ramana refused to accept it as a motivated petition. The CJI’s comments made headlines, offering comfort to many who felt that it was time for the sedition law to be shown the door. The comments by the CJI were reflective of the apex court’s line of thinking and showed that the judiciary is ready to become the vanguard of civil liberties and protecting ordinary citizens from the coercive power of the state.
CJI Ramana asked: “It’s a colonial law. It was meant to suppress the freedom movement. The same law was used by the British against Mahatma Gandhi and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, etc. Is this law still required to exist after 75 years of Independence?”
Expressing anxiety over the draconian nature of the law, the CJI remarked: “Our concern is the misuse of the law and the lack of accountability. Why does it continue in the statute book after 75 years of our Independence? The situation on the ground is grave… If one party does not like what the other is saying, Section 124A is used. It is a serious threat to the functioning of individuals and parties. This is like if a police officer wants to fix anybody in a village for something, he can use Section 124A. People are scared.”
The CJI asked Attorney General K.K. Venugopal – “Your government has repealed many stale laws, I do not know why is your government not looking into repealing Section 124A of the IPC?”
So, what exactly is the sedition law and how is it being misused? Will the Supreme Court be able to strike it down and will the government accept that situation? What can the ordinary citizens do to prevent the state from trampling on their rights in the name of maintaining law and order and ensuring that ‘writ of the state runs large’ around the country?
PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH
Jurisprudence or legal theory provides a deeper understanding of legal reasoning and analogy, legal systems, legal institutions, and the role of law in society. A prominent form of jurisprudence called normative jurisprudence goes to the root questions about law namely – what is the goal and purpose of law. One of its approaches called deontology holds the view that laws should reflect our obligation to preserve the autonomy and rights of others.
According to the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy – “Some choices cannot be justified by their effects – that no matter how morally good their consequences, some choices are morally forbidden. What makes a choice right is its conformity with a moral norm. Such norms are to be simply obeyed by each moral agent. In this sense, the Right is said to have priority over the Good. If an act is not in accord with the Right, it may not be undertaken.”
This is in contrast to the approach of consequentialism, which says that choices – acts and/or intentions –are to be morally assessed solely by the states of affairs they bring about. Consequentialists thus must specify initially the states of affairs that are intrinsically valuable – often called, collectively, “the Good.” The Good in that sense is said to be prior to “the Right.”
Section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code says: “Whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the Government established by law in India, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, to which fine may be added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added, or with fine.” Applying the deontological approach to 124 A, the Right (personal liberty) has precedence over the Good (law and order and writ of the State) and so the argument to retain sedition law loses its philosophical validity.
APPLICATION OF THE LAW
An important grievance pertaining to the law of sedition is the manner in which it has been abused by successive governments of the country.
According to the legal research portal Article 14 – “96% of sedition cases filed against 405 Indians for criticising politicians and governments over the last decade were registered after 2014, with 149 accused of making “critical” and/or “derogatory” remarks against (Prime Minister) Modi, 144 against Uttar Pradesh (UP) chief minister Yogi Adityanath.”
The same portal also compares the number of sedition cases filed under the governments of PM Manmohan Singh and PM Narendra Modi. The data shows that between 2010 and 2014, 3762 individuals were charged of sedition whereas between 2014 and 2020, 7136 individuals were charged. Similarly, in the Manmohan years (2010-14), 279 cases of sedition were registered while the Modi era (2014-20) saw 519 cases.
Moreover, according to the news agency PTI citing data from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), of the total 326 cases registered under sedition in the six-year period (2014-20), only six people were convicted (less than 2%).
Veteran journalist and Chairman of Asian School of Journalism, Sashi Kumar, who has filed a petition against the sedition law, asserted: “In 2019, 93 cases were on the ground of sedition as compared to the 35 cases that were filed in 2016. The same constitutes a 165 per cent increase. Of these 93 cases, chargesheets were filed in a mere 17 per cent of cases and even worse, the conviction rate was an abysmally low 3.3 per cent.”
Such blatant misuse of the law prompted the backlash against it and although there is a very low likelihood of the sedition law being taken back by the government, it is the duty of conscientious citizens to keep contesting its presence and utility through the judiciary.
THE ISLAMIC APPROACH
Islam has a balanced and regulated system for the protection of human rights and personal freedom. It guarantees the availability of human rights to all; particularly to the deprived sections. Islam is highly critical of the violators of rights and warns them of dire consequences in both this world and the hereafter. In addition to evolving a legal system for the protection of the weak and the downtrodden, Islamic teaching exhorts society to treat all sections of society with equal respect.
One can appreciate the level of moral protection offered by Islam to an individual’s opinion and right to dissent and criticise those in power by studying the following Hadith. According to: Musnad Aḥmad (18449), Tariq ibn Shihab reported: A man asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, “What is the best jihad?” The Prophet ﷺ said, “A word of truth in front of a tyrannical ruler.”
There is another Hadith recorded in Sahih Bukhari (Kitab al Ahkam) and Sahih Muslim (Kitab al Imarah) in which Abdullah bin Umar narrates that the Prophet ﷺ said: “A Muslim must listen to those in authority and obey them whether he likes or dislikes their commands, as long as he is not asked to commit sin. But if he is asked to do sinful acts, he will neither listen nor obey.”
Any law which tries to curb the “words of truth” from the lips of its citizens has no place in a civilized society.