SC Asks Centre To Respond On Plea Challenging Sedition Law

The petitioners also pointed out that they themselves have been charged with sedition under Section 124A of IPC in various FIRs for comments and cartoons shared by them on the social networking website, Facebook.

(Photo Courtesy: The Quint)

The Supreme Court on Friday, 30 April, sought a response from the Centre on a petition challenging the Constitutional validity of Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) — the sedition law.

A bench of Justices U U Lalit Indira Banerjee and KM Joseph agreed to examine the validity of the act and sent the notice to the Centre.

The plea was filed by two journalists — Kishorechandra Wangkhemcha and Kanhaiya Lal Shukla, from Manipur and Chhattisgarh respectively. The journalists have urged the court to declare Section 124-A as unconstitutional.

The petitioners have stated that Section 124-A infringes the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression, guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.

The petitioners also pointed out that they themselves have been charged with sedition under Section 124A of IPC in various FIRs for comments and cartoons shared by them on the social networking website, Facebook.

The petition further said that there is a frequent phenomenon of misuse, misapplication and abuse of Section 124-A since 1962, and added that the abuse of a law, in itself, may not bear the validity of the law but clearly points to the vagueness and uncertainty of the current law.

The petition, as per PTI, argued that the vagueness of Section 124-A exerts an unacceptable chilling effect on the democratic freedoms of individuals.

(With inputs from PTI.)