Supreme Court posts hearing on sedition for August 2nd week

NEW DELHI: The Union government on Monday informed the Supreme Court that consultation with all stakeholders are at "a substantially advanced stage" on criminal law reforms, including on section 124A (sedition) of IPC. The bench acceded to the request and posted the hearing in the second week of August.
On May 11, 2022, a bench headed by then CJI N V Ramana had virtually suspended operation of the much misused 124-year-old sedition provision to stop police from invoking it against anyone and had stayed both probe and trial in existing sedition cases to allow the Centre to examine pruning the rigour of Section 124A to sync it with present social milieu.
Not content with the Centre's offer that no sedition FIR in future would be registered without prior approval of area superintendent of police, the SC had ordered: "We expect that, till the re-examination of the provision is complete, it will be appropriate not to continue the usage of the aforesaid provision of law by the governments."
Craftily couching the directions as the highest court's expectations, which the Executive seldom lets down, the SC had said, "We expect that, till re-examination of the provision is complete, it will be appropriate not to continue the usage of Section 124A by the governments."
The CJI-led bench, during the hearing, was mulling whether petitions are required to be heard by a bench of five or seven judges as six decades ago, a five-judge bench of the SC in Kedar Nath Singh Vs Bihar had diluted the application of sedition law while upholding its constitutional validity. The CJI said in August it would consider afresh whether the issue requires reference to a larger bench.