Mumbai: The Centre on Monday informed the Supreme Court that it was at an advanced consultation stage on re-examining the colonial era sedition law.

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice J B Pardiwala deferred the hearing on a batch of pleas challenging the sedition law, under section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, to the second week of August.

The batch of pleas challenged the constitutional validity of the penal provision. Attorney General R Venkataramani said the consultation process has been at the advance stage and before it goes to Parliament, it will be shown to him. “Kindly post the matter for further hearing after the Monsoon session of Parliament,” he urged the bench.

Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan had urged the bench to constitute a bench of seven judges for adjudicating the issues. The bench said that even if the matter has to go to seven judges, it will have to be first placed before a five-judge bench.

On May 11, 2022, the apex court had put on hold the colonial-era penal law on sedition till an “appropriate” government forum re-examines it and directed the Centre and states to not register any fresh FIR invoking the offence. Besides the lodging of FIRs, ongoing probes, pending trials and all proceedings under the sedition law across the country will also be in abeyance, the top court had ruled.

Observing that the law has been under intense public scrutiny for its alleged use as a tool to repress dissent, including on social media, the bench spoke of the need to balance the interests of civil liberties and citizens with that of the State.

Sedition, which provides a maximum jail term of life under Section 124A of the IPC for creating “disaffection towards the government”, was brought into the penal code in 1890, 57 years before Independence and almost 30 years after the IPC came into being.

The number of sedition cases has been on the rise, with Maharashtra politician couple Navneet and Ravi Rana, author Arundhati Roy, student activist Umar Khalid and journalist Siddique Kappan among those charged under the provision.

PTI/Agencies

Press Trust of India