Sedition law must be scrapped

The grant of bail by a Bengaluru court to 19-year-old student Amulya Leona has again drawn attention to the sedition law under which she was arrested. She was charged for sedition under Section 124 A for shouting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ at an event in the city in February this year. It has taken about four months and petitions in various courts for her to get bail. She has now been granted bail because the police did not file the charge-sheet within the mandated 90 days. She had shouted the slogan at an event organised to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). She has explained that her intention had been misunderstood but the police stuck to the charge.

The norm “bail is the rule and jail is the exception’’ is not followed in many cases. It is especially difficult to secure bail in a case where the charge is sedition. Leona’s application for bail had been rejected by another court the day before she got the bail. The Supreme Court’s guidelines on the institution of sedition cases are not followed by the police. The court has said that the charge could be invoked only in the case of words or speeches that “tended to incite public disorder’’. There has to be a clear and immediate incitement to violence to justify the charge. The court has also said that shouting of slogans cannot be considered as constituting sedition. Yet, many people are arrested and charged with sedition in many parts of the country. Most such cases have a political dimension, and critics or political opponents of the government are the usual victims. The filing of sedition cases becomes a method of harassment. This corresponds to the increasing tendency to describe all critics of the government and the ruling party’s ideology as “anti-nationals’’.

While sedition cases have been increasing, the conviction rate is low. That shows that in most cases, the police and the prosecution are unable to support the charge of sedition with evidence. This again points to the misuse of the law as merely a tool of harassment and strengthens the case for scrapping it. Many countries, including Britain, from where the sedition law was imported to India, have scrapped it. In a modern enlightened democracy, there is no need for such a law. The Law Commission has also questioned the need to retain the law in its present form. It may be difficult to prevent its misuse as long as it is on the statute book.