The Supreme Court of India agreed to examine a plea by a former army officer challenging the Constitutional validity of the sedition law on the ground that it causes "chilling effect" on speech and is an unreasonable restriction on free expression, a fundamental right.
A bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana, A S
Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy directed the petitioner to serve a copy of the plea
to the Attorney General K K Venugopal.The plea, filed by Major-General S
G Vombatkere (Retd) submitted that Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code,
which deals with the offence of sedition, is wholly unconstitutional and should
be unequivocally and unambiguously struck down.
The petitioner contends that a statute criminalising expression based on
unconstitutionally vague definitions of disaffection towards Government etc. is
an unreasonable restriction on the fundamental right to free expression
guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) and causes constitutionally impermissible Chilling
Effect' on speech.
The petition said there is need to take into account the march of the times and the development of the law before dealing with Section 124-A Earlier, a separate bench of the apex court had sought response from the Centre on a plea challenging the Constitutional validity of sedition law filed by two journalists Kishorechandra Wangkhemcha and Kanhaiya Lal Shukla
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks