{"id":107459,"date":"2021-05-19T11:22:13","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T05:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=107459"},"modified":"2021-05-19T21:28:44","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T15:58:44","slug":"misuse-of-sedition-law-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/misuse-of-sedition-law-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Misuse of Sedition law in India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Synopsis \u2013 <\/strong>Unwarranted arrest of MP in Andhra Pradesh is another example of the misuse of the <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/supreme-court-judgment-on-sedition-law\/\">Sedition law<\/a> in India relating to exciting disaffection against the government.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Introduction-<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Section 124-A [which deals with <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/why-sedition-law-needs-a-relook\/\">sedition law<\/a>] has been misused in a number of cases in India. One of them is the unwarranted arrest of K. Raghu Ramakrishna Raju, an MP from Andhra Pradesh.<\/li>\n<li>Raju was arrested for allegedly acting in a manner that harmed the state government&#8217;s reputation.<\/li>\n<li>He has been charged under Sections 124A (sedition), 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups), and 505 (conducing public mischief).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What is the sedition act and the issues related to it?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Section 124A of the IPC, which deals with sedition states<\/strong> &#8211; Any offense committed with the intent to bring hatred or contempt or attempt to spread disaffection toward the government, shall be punished.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Punishment under sedition law-<\/strong> Sedition is a non-bailable offense. The punishment under the law varies from imprisonment up to three years to a life term and fine.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Issues with the act-<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Firstly, Against fundamental right to speech \u2013 <\/strong>The law often goes against the fundamental right to free speech and expressions. Which are essential parts of democracy. The sedition law has a chilling effect on people who think and speak freely.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>For example- <\/strong>Raju was accused of only speech-based offenses relating to his diatribe against his party leader and CM.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Secondly, Sedition law is a relic of colonial legacy &#8211; <\/strong>The law of sedition [British legacy] is an outdated and archaic rule that stands in the way of the Constitution&#8217;s provision of freedom of speech.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Thirdly, Low conviction rate-<\/strong> Most cases that are filed do not end in a conviction if Section 124A is applied.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fourthly, The sedition law is overly wide and loosely defined- <\/strong>The terminology used under Section 124-A, such as <strong>disaffection<\/strong>, is unclear and open to multiple interpretations depending on the investigating officers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>How K. Raghu Ramakrishna Raju&#8217;s arrest was unjust?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>According to the Supreme Court&#8217;s Arnesh Kumar judgment (2014), there is no need to arrest someone for a crime that carries a sentence of seven years or less.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Prison time for Sections 153A and Sections 505 is less than seven years.<\/li>\n<li>And Sections 124A (sedition), which has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, also prescribes an alternative jail term of three years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Way forward-<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The\u00a0definition of sedition should be narrowed down and properly defined.<\/li>\n<li>Section 124A should not be misused\u00a0as a tool to curb free speech and expression and it would be even more protective of free speech if the Centre abolished the provision.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source- <a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/Home\/ShareArticle?OrgId=GFK8JB87S.1&amp;imageview=0\">The Hindu<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis \u2013 Unwarranted arrest of MP in Andhra Pradesh is another example of the misuse of the Sedition law in India relating to exciting disaffection against the government. Introduction- Section 124-A [which deals with sedition law] has been misused in a number of cases in India. One of them is the unwarranted arrest of K.&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/misuse-of-sedition-law-in-india\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Misuse of Sedition law in India<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10319,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,1351,1310,9],"tags":[1435],"class_list":["post-107459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-daily-news","category-daily-news-updates","category-public","tag-sec_5","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":2,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1700117063},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}