Yunis Ahad
Founding father of United State Of America has demonstrated like, “The Liberties of our conrtry, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazardous: and it is our duty to defend them againt all attacks”. It willbe appropriate and geniune to mention that and it will also be a wise question to pose, weather it is necessary to keep along those things which are determental or which were used against us during our freedom struggle. Absolutely not! One would in every circumstances try to disaprove such things. Actually I want to draw your kind attention to the indian cconstitution wherein, there are provisions which were introduced by the britshers to muzzle the voice of those people who wanted to be free from Britsh imperialsm but astonshingly, such provisions are still alive in indian constitution, which the authorities and police invoke to press the dissent one of the section is 124 A of indian penal code .
Whar Is Section 124 A Of IPC? This section deals with the offence of sedition, a term that covers speech or rioting or any form of visible representation which brings the Government in to hatrd or contempt or excites disaffection towards the Government or attempts to do soo. It is punishable with three years in prison or a life term. “disaffection” it says and includes disloyality and feeling of enimity. It also says expresing disaproval of Goverments measures or action with a view to getting them changed by lawful means. It will be pertinent to state that the orign and history of it. This section was introduced in penal code in 1870, a decade after the indian penal code came into force. It was a colonial law as I have already mentioned before, it was directed against strong critisim of Britsh adminstration. In other words it was designed to supres the liberty of the then citizens.
Constitutional Validity: Two high courts have found it unconstitutional after independence of india as it violates article 19 of indian constitution i.e freedom of speech and expresion. However, constitution was amendedto include “public order” as one of the restriction on which free speech can be abridged by law. Therfore the supreme court in Kedar Nath Singh V/S State Of Bihar (1925) upheld its validity. At the same time it limited its application to acts that involve acts or tendency to create disorder or incitement or disorder to violance .
Government, by using this section and protecting itself from posttive critism have made arests on large scale since past years in which there are activists cartoonists and intelectuals. Liberals have time and again raised their voice against this move, demandin scraping of it. Activists and students of Jawahar Lal Nehru University who have been booked under this section is afresh example although it is sheer violation of law.
Solution: Government of india must in no time to initate a process to reconsider its validity, it should be scraped from statue book because it has no place in the modern democracy. This section is being misused even in cases where there is no violance or tendency to create public disorder Britsh Government abolished it more than a decade ago why can’t indai do so? It is high time for Government to follow the sugesstions of law commision and to protect the liberty of its citizens and to make sure the value of democracy can’t be devalued, and to make Democracy impartial.
(The author is a lawyer by profession. Views are his own [email protected])
