Pragmatic decision

All draconian laws must be reviewed

The government’s decision to “re-examine and reconsider” the sedition law under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code after seeking to defend it in the Supreme Court raises considerable hope for the cause of human rights and civil liberties in India. This exercise appears to be a response to the growing public discomfort with the law, and the possibility that the Supreme Court would read it down. On its part, the Supreme Court has taken a significant step by ordering a stay on all pending sedition cases and advising the police and administration not to use this section of the law until the Centre completes its review. The Centre had suggested that future cases under the section be registered only after scrutiny by an official at the superintendent of police level or above. 

It is still unclear, however, whether the government will scrap the law or sharpen the conditions under which the law can be invoked. This newspaper has argued that it has no place in the statute books of a modern democracy. The landmark 1962 ruling by a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld the validity of Section 124A but limited its scope to two tests: Whether the acts had the effect of subverting the government by violent means or creating law and order problems. Though these interpretations appear unexceptionable, the police and courts have often applied them so narrowly that the law has caught in its net activists and almost anyone whose opinion annoyed the Centre or state governments. It is certainly remarkable that there are 800 cases of sedition currently being heard and 13,000 people in jail because of it.

Though the Centre has not indicated a timeline for its review of the sedition law, this would be an opportune time for it to reconsider other laws that impinge on human rights. Foremost among them is the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA, under which an accused is presumed guilty unless proven innocent, which militates against basic constitutional guarantees. As with the sedition law, the draconian character of the UAPA and the state’s tendency to resort to it with alacrity have done much to harm India’s global reputation and are at odds with the joint statement on open societies that Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed at a virtual G7 summit in June last year. 

The more stringent National Security Act, which allows a person to be incarcerated for up to a year without charge, should also be up for reconsideration. Addressing these issues would build positive momentum towards strengthening India’s human rights record, which has recently come in for considerable scrutiny and criticism from Western democracies with which it seeks closer trade and defence ties. One major step in this direction was taken when the purview of the notorious Armed Forces Special Powers Act was relaxed in parts of the north-east. In this region and Jammu and Kashmir, the Act has long been seen as an instrument of human right violations by the army and has played a major role in alienating the Indian state and the armed forces from the people of these regions. The time to review this law, too, is long overdue.