Free speech has always been an issue for debate in India. Irrespective of the framing of the Constitution, people have always deserved and demanded their right to free speech. Prior to independence, there was a wave of slavery where people did not even know that they had or they deserved certain rights. It was just a certain class which enjoyed all rights. With the gradual change of time and advance of freedom, we obtained certain fundamental rights which were mentioned in the Constitution.

Slowly, the interpretation of these fundamental rights got widened on a case-to-case basis. One out of these fundamental rights is the Fundamental Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression. Although it has been made quite clear that none of the freedoms is absolute in nature, the freedoms have been given a broad interpretation. With this broadened interpretation, people have faced various issues regarding free speech as there isn’t everyone who accepts someone else’s point of view. This lead to rise of sedition cases in India. According to Section 124A of Indian Penal Code,

            “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the Government established by law in India, a shall be punished with imprisonment for life, to which fine may be added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added, or with fine.”

The most remarkable and landmark case regarding sedition is the case of Kedar Nath Singh v. State of Bihar[1]. In this case, the Supreme court clearly stated that the section 124A cannot be interpreted literally and it needs to be interpreted by the judges, hence the two essential conditions necessary to establish the crime of sedition are:

·       the acts complained of must be intended to have the effect of subverting the Government by violent means; and

·       the acts complained of must be intended, or have a tendency, to create disorder or disturbance of public peace/ law and order by resort to violence and must incite violence.

In 2007, there again came up a case of sedition namely Dr. Vinayak Sen v. State of Chhattisgarh[2]. In this case, Dr. Sen was charged of allegedly helping Naxalites in a specific rural area through letters sent from one of his patients in the jail. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for this reason specifying “disaffection towards Government” as his offence. However, as a paediatrician and a human rights activist, he received massive global recognition irrespective of the charges of sedition made against him.

Subsequent to this, there came up the case of Sanskar Marathe v. State of Maharashtra wherein a famous cartoonist namely Aseem Trivedi was accused of sedition because of his anti-corruption campaign cartoons. Although he was arrested and was kept in judicial custody, the judgment did not find him guilty of sedition on the basis that mere criticism of the Government is not seditious in nature. This case was where there was a harmonious construction between Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution and Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code. After building a harmonious construction, it was stated by the Court that publishing own opinions in the form of cartoons and expressing criticisms about the Government does not act as a part of sedition.

Even after the above-mentioned and certain other cases where sedition is interpreted widely to establish its balance with Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression, there has been no reduction in the number of cases of sedition. According to a recent article published on 2^nd February, 2021 by the Scroll.in[3]:

            “A new database launched by Article 14 on Tuesday showed that 96% of the sedition cases filed against 405 Indians for criticising political leaders and governments over the last decade were registered after the Narendra Modi government first came to power in 2014. Of these, the website said 149 people were accused of making “critical” or “derogatory” remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and 144 against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath.”

The new database showed that six sedition cases were filed during the ongoing farmers’ agitation, 22 after the Hathras gangrape, 25 amid protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019 and 27 after the Pulwama terror attack and those charged with sedition included Opposition leaders, students, journalists, academics and authors.[4] On a recent hearing at the Patiala House Court, Umar Khalid, Kanhaiyya Kumar and Anirban Bhattacharya along with seven others were granted bail in the 2016 sedition case. This has been a situation where these people have turned out to be heroes for a certain class of youngsters despite having spent some time in the Tihar Jail. This was a time when sedition seemed to clash with free speech not only on legal, but also on moral grounds.

If we look at the history of sedition, we shall be able to understand that it was a suppressive law framed by the Britishers to keep the Indians quiet who dared to raise a voice again the British Government. Even after independence, this law exists in equal severity and constant cases of sedition are being filed against people irrespective of the judicial precedents set by the Courts. Apart from just making our Government look authoritarian, it is also demeaning the power of the judiciary. On one hand, we talk about democracy and judge-made law whereas, on the other hand, we fail to respect the power of dissent existing as a limb of democracy and we also fail to understand the value of a judicial precedent.

Apart from sedition, this restraint on freedom of speech and expression has also affected journalistic freedom. In Gujarat, Dhaval Patel, editor of a Gujarati news portal, was booked and arrested on May 11, 2020, for sedition for allegedly publishing a ‘speculative’ report on the possible change in leadership in the state due to criticism over the rising COVID-19 count.[5] On reading this sentence clearly, we can easily see the words ‘speculative’ and ‘possible’. The content of the report was merely an opinion and even this could not be accepted from a journalist. This shows how these restraints are diminishing the quality of journalism in our country and affecting creativity in their field. It is high time that we realise the true value od democracy and free speech in this nation.

[2] MCRC No 1184 of 2007