Sedition law

Amnesty International’s India chapter has been slapped with sedition charges for organising an event in Bengaluru where anti-national slogans were allegedly raised on August 13.

For the first time, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) included data on crimes related to the 156-year-old sedition law in 2014, the year the BJP came to power. Sedition is a new category (section 124A of the Indian Penal Code) under a heading called "Offences Against the State".

Karnataka registered no sedition case in 2014, although 47 such cases were filed across nine states that year, according to NCRB data. Jharkhand (18) and Bihar (16) registered the most sedition cases that year.

"Offences Against the State" have been classified largely under two categories: offences against the state (under sections 121, 121A, 122, 123 & 124-A IPC) and offences promoting enmity between different groups (under sections 153A & 153 B IPC).

Sedition falls under section 124A IPC, while sections 121, 121A, 122 & 123 constitute waging war or attempt/conspiring to wage war or collecting arms for this purpose, among other related crimes.

The Section 124-A says: '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' shall be punished with life imprisonment. The explanations which the Indian Penal Code gives are that 'the expression 'disaffection' includes disloyalty and all feelings of hate.”

India shares the sedition law – once used by the colonial administration to imprison Mahatma Gandhi in 1922 and Bal Gangadhar Tilak in 1907 and 1909 -- with Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Iran, Uzbekistan, Sudan, Senegal and Turkey.

"It is absolutely necessary to read the entirety of the law that penalises sedition, before whipping it out as a means of quelling free speech," says Deeptha Rao, a lawyer with Bangalore's Alternative Law Forum, a legal advocacy, writes IndiaSpend.

"Explanation 2 to Section 124-A of the IPC clearly provides that comments expressing disapprobation of the measures of the government, with a view to obtain their alteration by lawful means, do not constitute the offence of sedition."

Likewise, Explanation 3 to Section 124-A clarifies that comments expressing disapprobation of the administrative or other action of the government do not constitute sedition.