In this article, Himanshi Yadav, a third-year law student at the National Law University, Jodhpur and Akshay Tiwari, a third-year law student at the National Law University Jodhpur, have analysed the sedition laws in India, making a case for the need for reform in these laws arguing that these laws are not desirable in modern India.
This article by the authors has also been selected as the winning essay in the 10th DD Basu Essay Competition. We would like to congratulate the authors for the same.
Introduction
On the March 11, 2011, a disaster struck Japan. The most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, with a magnitude of 9.0-9.1, shook up the floor of the Pacific a few miles to the East of the Oshika Peninsula in the Tōhoku region of the island nation[1]. The powerful tectonic forces created by the seismic event triggered tsunami waves, some of which reached massive heights of up to 40 meters.
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was one among the many places in the area that the tsunami had destroyed. Between March 12 and 15, three nuclear meltdowns, three hydrogen explosions and the release of radioactive contamination in Units 1, 2, and 3 were caused due to the damage done by the tsunami[2]. This was the most serious nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, receiving a level seven classification on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES)[3]. The world was traumatised by this disaster, and the waves of fear spread to India as well.
In a coastal fishing village in Tamil Nadu by the name of Idinthakarai, the people were struck by fear as construction was underway for the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in their proximity[4]. The villagers had been protesting the construction of this plant ever since it was first proposed in the late 1980s[5]. Now, with this fear gripping their hearts, the protests escalated and the movement picked up steam. These events culminated on 10 September 2012 with an over-the-top response from the state with several thousand policemen raiding Idinthakarai[6].
Arun Janardhanan, a journalist for the Indian Express, who prepared a report on the events in Idinthakarai, called this village the “ground zero” in India’s sedition map[7]. On that day, 21 cases of sedition, and dozens of criminal complaints were filed against 8,956 protestors, including one S.P. Udaykumar, a prominent figure in the protest, along with a few other named protestors and 300 to 3000 unnamed protestors[8]. Janardhanan’s report states that according to a senior police officer, one of the reasons for such a large number of unnamed protestors in the FIR was to “scare people” as any one of them could be among the unnamed[9].
This incident highlights the issue that is the focus of this essay. Section 124A may be an outdated piece of colonial legislation, seemingly irrelevant in the modern era, but it is undoubtedly still highly relevant in India as a tool to suppress dissent. It’s unwarranted and indiscriminate abuse by the law enforcement branch debases the very concept of rule of law which promises protection from tyranny and arbitrary scorn of state power. With its wide ambit and vague nature, the offence is an exceptional weapon to silence dissent, suppress the opposition and dismiss criticism as “anti-national” and against the interest of the state.
According to the most recent V-Dem Institute study on the condition of democracy worldwide[10], India, along with Brazil, El Salvador, Turkey, and Hungary is among the top 10 autocratizing nations, and projections alarmingly suggest that democracy will continue to deteriorate. India’s score has also declined in recent years on the EIU’s democracy index, which now classifies the country as a flawed democracy[11]. In light of such findings, the ruling party has been accused of pursuing measures that have weakened the nation’s democracy. The administration has manipulated the law to quell dissent, abused the investigative process to pursue flimsy charges against political opponents, and built jail facilities specifically for people who cannot demonstrate their citizenship, with disproportionate negative impacts on the minority community of Muslims[12]. In such a political climate, sedition is a more effective and helpful tool for suppressing dissent than it has been in a long time.
With this essay, the authors seek to bring forward this phenomenon of the weaponization of sedition and to shed light on the danger that it poses for the democratic foundations of the country. We will begin the essay by providing a historical background, discussing the long history of sedition being used in India by the authoritarian colonial regime to suppress those who opposed them. Then we will discuss the current misuse of the law by the ruling party to curb dissent and highlight various major activists who have feel victim to this draconinan law. We will deliberate upon the legitimacy of the usage of section 124A under the current government setup. With the help of illustrative examples, we shall argue that the way in which section 124A is used is illegitimate and against public interest, as it serves as a medium to spread fear in those who dissent and to spread the ideological agenda of the government. Finally, we will take a look at the way forward from here in light of the recent Supreme Court order and will also take a look at how various other countries has dealt with this colonial heritage and recommend certain changes in the law that can be considered in light of the Supreme Court order.
The Origins of the Law
On 15th December 1921, Young India, a weekly paper, published an article titled “Puzzle and its Solution”[13]. A boldfaced response to a statement made by Viceroy and Governor-General Lord Reading regarding the Jallianwala tragedy, the article bravely defied the excesses of the Raj and openly made declarations of wanting to “overthrow the government” and “compel it’s submission to the people’s will”. For the publication of this article, and two others[14] published in the same paper, the editor of Young India, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was arrested and charged with three charges under Section 124A[15] of the Indian Penal Code for bringing or attempting to bring into hatred or contempt or exciting or attempting to excite disaffection towards, His Majesty’s Government established by law in British India, by means of the written words contained in the articles.[16]
The proceedings began for the case of Emperor v. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi[17], and instead of denying these charges, Gandhi accepted all of the accusations in a written statement addressed to the court, stating that “Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite to violence. But the section under which mere promotion of disaffection is a crime: I have studied some of the cases tried under it; I know that some of the most loved of India’s patriots have been convicted under it. I consider it a privilege, therefore, to be charged under that section.”[18]
Gandhi was served with a sentence of 6 years of simple imprisonment, which was remitted after he had served almost a year in prison[19].
Gandhi’s arrest was by no means the only arrest of a freedom fighter for sedition. As attested to by Gandhi in his written statement[20], section 124A was often used by the British government as a convenient tool to quash forces of dissent against their regime established by force in India.
In Macaulay’s Draft Penal Code 1837[21], the offence of sedition was punished under section 113, with life imprisonment as punishment. However, this section was not present in the Penal Code when it was enacted in 1860[22] and was only added later under section 124A IPC through special Act XVII of 1870[23]. Thereafter, it aided the British in suppressing anyone who sought independence and resisted their oppressive rule in the subcontinent. To quell opposition, the law of sedition was used against notable nationalists including Annie Besant, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Abul Kalam Azad[24].
From the perspective of the British Colonial Regime, which was a foreign regime ruling over a vast nation that it did not belong to, the offence of sedition was a necessity, as a culture of open dissent and criticism could spell out the downfall of their empire. So, the Raj used the offence of Sedition freely to arrest and harass dissenters and revolutionaries, and to slow down the march of the freedom struggle[25]. With the end of the colonial regime in 1947, and with power now in the hands of the natives, it would not have been unreasonable to expect them to root out the statutory device that had been used to hold back their voices. However, this was not the case[26].
During the Constituent Assembly debates, the topic of sedition was brought up multiple times[27]. Somnath Lahiri, the sole representative of the Communist Party of India, while speaking about the freedom of the press, remarked that “Here according to Patel a seditious speech is a punishable crime. If I say at any time in the future, or the Socialist Party says, that the Government in power is despicable, Sardar Patel if he is in power at that time, will be able to put the Socialist Party people and myself in jail…”[28] Lahiri’s opposition was effective and resulted in the removal of the word “seditious” from the proviso to clause 8(a) of the draft Constitution, which granted freedom of speech and expression. Similar opposition from prominent faces of the freedom such as K.M. Munshi, Seth Govind Das, Damodar Swarup Seth, and others resulted in the removal of the provision under Article 13 of the draft Constitution that allowed sedition as an exception to the Fundamental Right to freedom of speech[29]. Freedom of Speech and Expression appeared in the final Constitution under Article 19, without any exception for seditious speech.
However, after the word ‘sedition’ was removed from Article 19, as well as because of Article 13 of the final draft of the Constitution, which states that any law in effect as of the Constitution’s commencement date would be void to the extent that it was inconsistent with fundamental rights under Part III of the Constitution, Section 124A of the IPC was questioned as to its constitutionality[30]. The ideal outcome would have been for Parliament to declare Section 124A of the IPC invalid, now that the term “sedition” had been removed as a restriction on the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression. That, however, never came to be.
Post-Colonial Developments
One of the first cases of adjudication upon the constitutionality of sedition in India was the case of Tara Singh Gopi Chand v. The State[31] in 1950 where Chief Justice Eric Weston of the Punjab High Court found that section 124A violates the fundamental right to free speech and expression and invalidated the provision.
However, the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951[32] was passed soon after this judgement was delivered which introduced new grounds on which freedom of speech and expression could be restricted as long as the restrictions were “reasonable”. From this point on, the restriction only had to be “in the interest of the security of the State” in order to qualify as sedition, not just against an act that compromised state security or had the potential to topple the government. Such general wording provided the State more leeway when invoking the crime of sedition. Soon after this act was passed, an Adivasi leader was booked for an inflammatory speech against the government in the case of Debi Soren & Ors. v. The State[33]. In its judgement, a split bench of the Patna High Court made the distinction between disapprobation and disaffection, concluding that only disaffection results in public disturbance. The High Court concluded that Section 124A of the IPC did not violate Article 19 and affirmed its constitutionality.
The next major ruling on the issue was also one of the most authoritative, when in the 1962 landmark ruling of Kedar Nath Singh v. State of Bihar[34] a five-judge bench of the hon’ble Apex Court upheld the constitutionality of the sedition law, and gave clarification about the provision. The court also pointed out that using the sedition provision requires the existence of a “pernicious tendency” to encourage violence.
Kedar Nath Singh, a member of the Forward Communist Party of Bihar, was accused of sedition in this case for making derogatory remarks about the country’s current Indian National Congress administration. The Supreme Court made it clear that section 124A could not be used to censor free expression and could only be utilised if it could be demonstrated that the seditious remark in issue incited violence or would cause public disturbance. According to the court, Kedar Nath did not commit sedition since he attacked the Congress party, not the Indian government, and no violence was called for as a result of his speech[35].
This case was upheld by the court in Balwant Singh & Anr. v. State of Punjab[36].A two-judge Supreme Court division bench found in the accused’s favour on the grounds that Balwant Singh’s acts did not constitute sedition because the statement in issue did not cause any disruption of the peace and was not likely to encourage violence in the minds of the intended audience.
Misuse of the Law
The law against sedition has a history of misuse against voices that resist tyranny and try to bring attention to the sufferings of the masses. In recent times, it has been used to silence and harass journalists[37], students[38], opposition leaders[39], and environmentalists[40], and it has proven to be an effective gag in all these cases. There is an especially worrisome similarity in various recent incidents of this law being (mis)applied against government opponents.
From repeated dismissal of bail pleas to denial of basic necessities during long jail sentences, prominent Indian activists involved in the Bhima-Koregaon case, such as Gautam Navlakha[41], Sagar Gorkhe[42] and Sudha Bhardwaj[43] etc. have faced innumerable injustices due to the regime’s policy of curbing dissent.
Incidents like these highlight a troubling pattern present in the way in which sedition cases are being interpreted conveniently, with the effect being the protection of the political stronghold of those in power. By creating fear in the minds of communities that are represented by the activists and journalists that are arrested, the authority is able to avoid facing the consequences of its shortcomings and evade its constitutional responsibilities. The miniscule conviction rates in cases of sedition lend credence to the claim that the purpose behind the application of section 124A is not the protection of the interests of the state or the people, but the suppression of resistance against those who oppose the agenda of the party in power.
According to the NCRB’s latest Crime in India report for the year 2020[44], since 2016 the conviction rate for cases of sedition has varied from between 3 percent to 33 percent, with a 165% jump in the number of cases between 2016 and 2019[45]. These observations suggest that even if the relevance of section 124A as a piece of legitimate legislation may have decreased, it is still relevant as a whip in the hand of the powerful with which they may harass those who dare critique them.
For those who are arrested under this draconian law, life can become painful and difficult. For instance, Hem Mishra, a student of JNU who was arrested by the Maharashtra police under allegations of being a “naxal courier” and charged under various provisions of the UAPA and sedition[46], described his experience as follows:
“I was then taken to yet another room, where every kind of custodial violence was inflicted on me for three days. Bajirao (a kind of baton which inflicts maximum hurt, while does not leave wound marks) was used to hit me, especially on the soles of my feet, I was also kicked and punched till my whole body was numb. In these ways I was beaten up every day till a point of unconsciousness, and yet in these three days I was never for a second given a chance to sleep. After three days of such cruel measures of torture in illegal detention, I was dumped in Aheri Police Station on 23.08. 2014.”[47]
According to a fact-finding report by the Indian Association of People’s Lawyers, lawyers representing political prisoners charged with various provisions including sedition in the politically charged area of Bastar, Chhattisgarh are being harassed by the police as well as the bar association. Activists such as these are not being allowed a fair trial and are essentially locked up in the complex maze of the judicial system, unable to bring forward the issues faced by the communities they represent.
Justice Deepak Gupta, a recently retired Supreme Court justice, called for the repeal of section 124A. The sedition statute, according to Justice Gupta, should be “immediately abolished” Governments, he claims, utilise the law to instil fear in their citizens. The former Supreme Court justice further stated that the legislation is often abused.
Sedition law is often used to stifle political opponents. According to a database[48] prepared by Article 14 in 2021, 77 percent of the sedition cases in Uttar Pradesh since 2010 have been registered since Yogi Adityanath became the Chief Minister. Over the previous decade, 96 percent of the sedition charges launched against 405 Indians for criticising politicians and governments were filed after 2014, with 149 accused of uttering “critical” and/or “derogatory” statements against Modi and 144 against Uttar Pradesh (UP) chief minister Yogi Adityanath.
The incidents and problems highlighted above illustrate how the modern-day offence of sedition has lost all credibility, relevance, and desirability as a legitimate piece of legislation, and has no constitutional footing to stand on. However, it maintains its relevance as a tool of control and suppression, used freely and loosely to throttle protests, criticisms, and political opposition. In light of such facts, it can be inferred that the nation would be better off without this draconian law of the colonial era.
The way forward
On 15th July 2021 a bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and justices AS Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy questioned the Attorney General of India about the law on sedition, asking why a colonial law used to arrest Gandhi, Tilak, and Gokhale was still relevant in our country 75 years after independence[49]. The bench raised concerns about the excessive misuse of the law and compared it to a carpenter who upon being asked to cut a piece of wood, cuts down the entire forest. The Ministry of Home Affairs replied by stating that there was no proposal under consideration to scrap the provision. The statements of the Chief Justice of India were made during proceedings, and it is clear from them that the highest court has taken judicial note of the State’s misuse of the sedition law.
Almost a year later, on July 11th 2022, the Supreme Court of India passed an order through which section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code was kept on abeyance. According to the affidavit[50] filed on behalf of the Union of India, the process of re-examining and re-considering section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code is currently underway. These recent developments may be indicative of an upcoming change in the law which could relieve the nation from the restrictive binds of section 124 A. On a related note, the 267th Report of the Commission on Hate Speech[51] made a distinction between hate speech and sedition, stating that whereas sedition is a direct offence against the State, hate speech damages the State indirectly by upsetting the peace in the community. According to the study, for a remark to be considered sedition, it must pose a danger to both the security of the State and India’s sovereignty and integrity[52].
Although these developments are very welcome in the current scenario, it can be said that they have arrived quite late in India. In the United Kingdom, which is the source of the law against sedition, the law against sedition became obsolete in the 1960s[53], and was finally repealed in 2009[54]. It is a common criticism of the law against sedition that the colonial regime that created the law for its own purposes has now disposed of it, and yet the nation that was controlled and supressed by that law is still using it 75 years after it gained its freedom.
On 5 October 2021, Singapore, which, like India, inherited colonial English law, abolished its sedition statute, which had been put in place 83 years earlier to quell local resistance to British colonial control. Key provisions of the Sedition Act, according to the Home Ministry, have been out of date for a while in contemporary Singapore, and prosecutions under the statute are extremely rare. It claimed that a number of additional legislations can adequately solve the problems covered by the sedition law[55].
In light of these recent developments in nations around the world with sedition laws from the same source, the time is right for the citizens of India to gain unrestricted access to the rights availed to them under their Constitution.
The Law Commission of India provided three significant recommendations for Section 124A of the IPC in its 42nd Report (1971), that included the suggestion to incorporate Mens rea into the section, widening the ambit of the section and dealing with the ambiguities in the penalties.
Along with these recommendations, there is scope for other changes to be made that would help realise the freedom of speech and expression that the constitution grants, such as:
- Providing clarification that sedition only applies when it directly leads to the inciting of violence and the commission of a crime subject to a specific punishment.
- Providing an explanation stating that actions taken to voice opposition to governmental actions or administrative decisions would not constitute sedition.
- Including a clarification of the definition of “disaffection” in this clause.
- Including a clarification on permissible demonstrations.
Even the mere inclusion of these clarifications may not suffice to solve the issue of the malicious usage of section 124 A. Despite Kedarnath v. the State of Bihar[56] providing clear instructions, Section 124A of the IPC is still being misused by the police and state agencies, making any reforms unlikely to be effective in practise. It may also be argued that, in the absence of any institutional improvements, changing the language of Section 124A alone would not significantly alter the current situation[57]. It is crucial to educate the public, law enforcement, the executive branch, and the lower judiciary about the modified section in order to combat these. Advocacy efforts are necessary to inform the many facets of society about the significance of this provision in addition to the change.
Conclusion
Throughout its long history, section 124A of the Indian Penal Code has been used by multiple regimes to control, coerce, and suppress dissenters in order to quash protests, scare away critics, and maintain their hold on power. Freedom fighters, journalists, activists, students, and artists have all been harassed and silenced with use of this provision. It is essential for the citizenry in India to realise the significance of this fact and become concerned about the encroachments on their rights and liberties. An open platform for criticism may be unpleasant for any given ruling party, but for the country, it is undoubtedly a boon.
The freedom of speech and expression given to us by Article 19(a)[58] of the Constitution of India is a sacrosanct provision, with deep and highly impactful consequences in the way in which the nation functions. It is essential that the citizens of India can avail this right without unreasonable restrictions such as the ones placed on them with the help of Section 124A. Expression is not a wholly individualistic action. The opinions, criticisms, and suggestions expressed by an individual or a community are a culmination of their identity, and their lived experience in the nation. The very premise of democracy is to ensure that this experience counts towards the running and ruling of a nation, and it is the duty of a democratic government to ensure the same.
Given the recent order of the Supreme Court[59], we are currently presented with a golden opportunity to expand the rights of the Indian citizen, and to facilitate communication between the individual and the state and it is high time to reconsider the desirability of the law.
[1] National Geographic, Mar 11, 2011 CE: Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, available at https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/tohoku-earthquake-and-tsunami (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[2] Brookings, Earthquake, Tsunami, Meltdown – The Triple Disaster’s Impact on Japan, Impact on the World, March 11, 2013, available at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2013/03/11/earthquake-tsunami-meltdown-the-triple-disasters-impact-on-japan-impact-on-the-world/ (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[3] Id.
[4] The Hindu, One-day anti-nuke fast turns into 72-hour strike at Idinthakarai, October 09, 2011, available at https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu//article60487674.ece (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[5] The Guardian, The lonely struggle of India’s anti-nuclear protesters, June 06, 2016, available at https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jun/06/lonely-struggle-india-anti-nuclear-protesters-tamil-nadu-kudankulam-idinthakarai (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[6] Supra note 4.
[7] Arun Janardhanan, 8,856 ‘enemies of state’: An entire village in Tamil Nadu lives under shadow of sedition, September 12, 2016, available at https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/kudankulam-nuclear-plant-protest-sedition-supreme-court-of-india-section-124a-3024655/ (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] V-Dem Institute, Democracy Report 2022: Autocratization Changing Nature?, (March 2022), available at https://v-dem.net/media/publications/dr_2022.pdf (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[11] IANS, India’s score declined significantly in recent years in EIU Democracy Index, February 10, 2022, available at https://www.deccanherald.com/national/indias-score-declined-significantly-in-recent-years-in-eiu-democracy-index-1080071.html (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[12] Christophe Jaffrelot, Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy 159-175 (2021).
[13] Mahatma Gandhi, Young India: 1919-1921 418, 1924.
[14] Mahatma Gandhi, Young India: 1919-1921 309-10, 1924; Mahatma Gandhi, Young India: 1919-1921119, 1924
[15] Indian Penal Code, 1870, §124A.
[16] K.D. Gaur, Textbook on Indian Penal Code 678 (2019).
[17] Emperor v. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Shankarlal Ghelabhai Sankar, Session case No 45/1922 Ahmedabad;
[18] Id., 678.
[19] Bernard Sexton, The Trial of Gandhi, 16(3) Current History (1916-1940) 440 (1922).
[20] Mahatma Gandhi, The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 6 14-24 (1958).
[21] Thomas Babington Macaulay et al., Indian Penal Code: as originally framed in 1837 (1895).
[22] Law Commission of India, Consultation Paper on Sedition, 9 (August 2018), available at https://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/CP-on-Sedition.pdf (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[23] Krishna Deo Gaur, Textbook on the Indian Penal Code 226–227 (2009).
[24] Chitranshul Sinha, The Great Repression: The Story of Sedition in India (2019).
[25] Id. at 146; Stephen Morton, The Great Repression: The Story of Sedition in India, 47(2) J. Commonwealth Literature 175-189 (2012).
[26] Nivedita Saksena & Siddhartha Srivastava, An Analysis of the modern offence of sedition, 7 NUJS L. Rev. 121 (2014).
[27] CLPR, Constituent Assembly Debates on Sedition and Freedom of Speech and Expression, available at https://clpr.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/CAD-and-Sedition.docx (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[28] Constituent Assembly Debates, April 29, 1947, speech by Somnath Lahiri, available at http://164.100.47.194/Loksabha/Debates/cadebatefiles/C29041947.html (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[29] Gautam Bhatia, The Conservative Constitution: Freedom of Speech and the Constituent Assembly Debates, The Indian Constituent Assembly 103 (2017).
[30] Supra note 26.
[31] Tara Singh Gopi Chand v. The State 1951 CriLJ 449.
[32] The Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951.
[33] Debi Soren & Ors. v. The State 1954 CriLJ 758.
[34] Kedar Nath Singh v. State of Bihar 1962 AIR 955.
[35] Id.
[36] Balwant Singh & Anr. v. State of Punjab (1995) 3 SCC 214.
[37] Omar Rashid, Journalist and three others, arrested on their way to Hathras, booked for sedition in U.P., The Hindu, October 7, 2020, available at https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/malayalam-journalist-3-others-arrested-near-hathras-booked-under-sedition-law/article32791003.ece (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[38] Vikas Pathak et al., Govt. acts tough, JNU student leader charged with sedition, The Hindu, February 12, 2016, available at https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/JNUSU-president-arrested-under-sedition-charges/article60561727.ece (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[39] Scroll Staff, Manipur Congress leader charged with sedition for alleged derogatory remarks about Amit Shah, Scroll.in, April 14, 2022, available at https://scroll.in/latest/1021796/manipur-congress-leader-charged-with-sedition-for-allegedly-using-foul-language-against-amit-shah (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[40] Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed, Disha Ravi, an environmental activist from Bengaluru, arrested by Delhi police and charged with sedition for ‘formulation and dissemination’ of a toolkit to aid protesting farmers which was shared by Greta Thunberg, Frontline, February 15, 2021, available at https://frontline.thehindu.com/dispatches/disha-ravi-an-environmental-activist-from-bengaluru-arrested-by-delhi-police-and-charged-with-sedition-for-formulation-and-dissemination-of-a-toolkit-to-aid-protesting-farmers-which-was-shared-by-greta-thunberg/article33841330.ece (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[41] The Hindu Team, Bhima Koregaon case: SC dismisses bail plea of Gautam Navlakha, The Hindu, May 12, 2021, available at https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/bhima-koregaon-case-sc-dismisses-bail-plea-of-gautam-navlakha/article34539998.ece Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[42] Sadaf Modak, Elgaar Parishad case: Court rejects demand for nets, but asks jail to take precautions against mosquitoes, The Indian Express, July 8, 2022, available at https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/elgaar-parishad-case-court-rejects-demand-for-nets-8015895/ (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[43] Ajaz Ashraf, My Spirit has not been broken: Activist Sudha Bharadwaj, Newsclick, January 27, 2022, available at https://www.newsclick.in/my-spirit-has-not-been-broken-activist-sudha-bharadwaj (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[44] Ministry of Home Affairs, National Crime Records Bureau, Crime in India 2020.
[45] Leah Verghese, NCRB 2019 data shows 165% jump in sedition cases, 33% jump in UAPA cases under Modi govt, The Print, October 12, 2020, available at https://theprint.in/opinion/ncrb-2019-data-shows-165-jump-in-sedition-cases-33-jump-in-uapa-cases-under-modi-govt/521861/ (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[46] Sanhati, Arrest of Hem Mishra and Prashant Rahi: Press statements and reports, September 5, 2013, available at http://sanhati.com/articles/7924/ (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[47] Sanhati, Letter from Nagpur Jail, October 29, 2014, available at http://sanhati.com/articles/11614/ (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[48] Article 14, Our New Database Reveals Rise In Sedition Cases In The Modi Era, February 02, 2021, available at https://www.article-14.com/post/our-new-database-reveals-rise-in-sedition-cases-in-the-modi-era (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[49] LiveLaw, Is It Still Necessary To Continue Sedition Law, Which Was Used By British To Suppress Our Freedom Movement, Even After 75 Yrs Of Independence: CJI Ramana to Centre, July 15, 2021, available at https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/supreme-court-sedition-law-section-124-constitutional-validity-misuse-british-177494 (Last visited on July 10, 2022).
[50] S. G. Vombatkere v. Union of India, Affidavit on Behalf of Union of India, W.P.(C) No. 682/202 (S.C.).
[51] 267th Report of The Commission on Hate Speech (2017).
[52] Id.
[53] Mythili Mishra, Criminalising Dissent Sedition Laws in India, 1(1) Rule of Law J. 14 (2020).
[54] Id.
[55] Shaswat Nayak, Offences of Acting against the State: A Comparative Study of Legal Positions in India and United States, 4 (3) Int’l JL Mgmt. & Human. 647. 3811 (2021).
[56] Kedar Nath Singh v. State of Bihar 1962 AIR 955.
[57] Mitshu Patel, Analyzing the Law of Sedition in India, 3(4) Int’l JL Mgmt. & Human 647 (2021).
[58] The Constitution of India, 1950, Art. 19(1)(a).
[59] S. G. Vombatkere v. Union of India, Order, W.P.(C) No. 682/202 (S.C.).
Constitutional Law Society, NUJS 