The 22nd Law Commission of India, headed by former Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi has recommended that the provision related to sedition be retained with procedural safeguards and enhanced jail term.
Key points
- The Commission recommended three changes to the law on sedition. The first is to include the ratio of the Kedar Nath ruling into the provision by adding the words “with a tendency to incite violence or cause public disorder.”
- Section 124A has a jail term of up to three years or life imprisonment. The 42nd Law Commission has now proposed enhancing the jail term up to seven years or life imprisonment.
- Third, to prevent misuse of the law, the report suggested including a procedural safeguard that no FIR shall be registered for sedition unless a police officer, not below the rank of Inspector, conducts a preliminary inquiry and on the basis of the report made by the said police officer the Central Government or the State Government, as the case may be, grants permission for registering a First Information Report.
- The Commission also justified criminalising sedition, saying it is a reasonable restriction under Article 19(2) of the Constitution (which deals with restrictions on the right to freedom of speech, assembly, etc. under Article 19(1)).
- Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code penalises a crime against the state. It defines the crime as bringing “into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government established by law in India.”
- In 1962, the Supreme Court in ‘Kedarnath Singh v State of Bihar’ upheld the constitutional validity of IPC Section 124A.
