This Blog post I am writing highlighting a colonial rule prevailing in independent India on which our CJI has mentioned that there must be Indianisation of Laws in India is need of hour.
CJI NV Ramana - Our Legal System Colonial, Need Of The Hour Is the Indianisation of Our Legal System (YT/LIVE LAW)
Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with sedition, simply express "Whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visual representation, or otherwise, incites or seeks to incite hate or contempt for, or excites or attempts to arouse disaffection against, the Government constituted by law" will be punished with :
(i) imprisonment for life, to which fine may be added,
(ii)or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added,
(iii) or with fine.
NOTE:1.Disaffection involves all feeling of malice and disloyalty.
2.It is not a crime under this section to promote or seek to promote hate, contempt, or disaffection.
In the original law which was brought under the colonial rule in 1860 it was not there. . Although it was used on some of our prominent freedom fighter to dilute the freedom movement.
Gangadhar Bal Tilak was the first person in Indian History to be accused of sedition. The accusation was filed by the British government, who claimed that articles in Tilak's Marathi publication Kesari would inspire people to resist the government's efforts to control the plague outbreak in India.(regarding which CJI has recently sited that while hearing a case)
*Sedition law after Independence:
After debates in the Constituent Assembly, the term "sedition" was removed from the Constitution in 1948. KM Munshi proposed a change to the constituent Assembly that would eliminate the word "sedition" as a basis for restricting constitutional freedom of speech and expression.
When the Constitution was adopted on November 26, 1949, the word "sedition" was removed from the document, and Article 19(1)(a) guaranteed total freedom of speech and expression. Section 124A, on the other hand, remained in the IPC.
The first constitutional amendment, passed in 1951, limited freedom under Article 19(1)(a) and empowered the state under Article 19(2) by imposing "reasonable limits" on the right to free expression.
For the first time in India's history, Section 124A was deemed a cognizable offence in 1973.The new Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, which went into force in 1974 and repealed the colonial-era 1898 Code of Criminal Procedure, made sedition a cognizable offence, allowing police to make arrests without a warrant.
Present outline of Sedition :
Cases of sedition and under the strict Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act increased in 2019, according to statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) posted on its website, although just 3% of sedition cases resulted in convictions.
Over the previous year, the number of sedition cases increased by 25%, while the number of arrests increased by 41%.In 2019, 93 incidents of sedition were recorded, with 96 arrests and 76 charge sheets, compared to 70 cases, 56 arrests, and 27 charge sheets the previous year.
In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha in February, the ministry of home affairs stated that just two of the 96 persons detained for sedition in 2019 were convicted, while 29 were acquitted.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1641007/
2.https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/the-sedition-story-complicated-history-of-sec-124a-101626370928612.html
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_124A_of_the_Indian_Penal_Code
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