Cong, Left welcome SC order on sedition law

The Left parties, too, hailed the Supreme Court’s direction to the Centre and states to keep in abeyance all pending trials, appeals, and proceedings with respect to the charge framed under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with the offence of sedition, till the central government completes the promised exercise to reconsider and re-examine the provision.

The CPM and the CPI asked the court to scrap sedition law altogether and not wait for the government to review the same.

“Speaking truth to power cannot be sedition for it is true nationalism and the true test of how committed you are to your country and to your people. The Supreme Court has finally spoken in a historical verdict by staying the sedition law. A clear-cut message has gone today to the suppressors and subjugators of public opinion, of dissent, of everyone who criticises the autocratic and dictatorial rulers and their policy that you can no longer suppress the voice of truth, suppress the voice of dissent; those critical of government must be heard and course corrections need to be done,” Congress’s communication department head Randeep Surjewala said.

The Congress had in its manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections promised repeal of the sedition law. Promising repeal of “instruments that are outdated or unjust or unreasonably restrict the freedoms of the people,” the manifesto said.

Surjewala said the Supreme Court has finally spoken and argued the “Constitution will be upheld and the voice of truth and those speaking truth to power will finally have their way”.

Addressing a press conference, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury said his party has always opposed the anachronistic sedition law. “It’s good that the SC has now ordered that this section must be kept in abeyance…The plea of the Modi government that it will review the cases is specious because it has been grossly misusing the sedition law to harass all dissent since 2014,” he said.

He said as many as 326 people were arrested under the sedition law since the BJP government came to office at the Centre. “But only six of them have been convicted in the courts. This is a gross abuse of the law that has been taking place under the Modi government. This law should be scrapped and removed from the statute books,” he said. In a statement, the CPI, too, demanded scrapping of Section 124A of the IPC.