THE HISTORY OF SECTION 124A OF THE IPC
By: Ranjul Malik, BA LLB 1st Year
Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code codifies and criminalises the act of sedition in India. The Section which has been the centre of many a heated debates right from India’s independence, again finds its legality being challenged before the Supreme Court. The article takes a look at the history of what has been termed as “India’s draconian law.”
Section 124A was introduced into the IPC in 1870 by James Stephen to curtail the wave of revolution on the back of Wahhabism and the Indian Nationalism, soaring towards the Raj, The Act was amended in 1898 to give way to the Section 124A that we have today. The history of the law is often remembered by people for the series of arrests of Tilak in the 1890s, the prominent one being that of 1897 (Queen-Empress v. Bal Gangadhar Tilak & Keshav Mahadev Bal)[1] wherein he was arrested for his “provoking” writings which lead to death of two British officials, but the first instance of the law was used comes in from the. Queen-Empress v. Jogendra Chunder Bose & Ors[2]case, where the Calcutta High Court held the editors of a Bengali newspaper guilty of sedition for publication of critical content against the ruling policies, the verdict was announced ignoring the plea of the defendant that they were not the original writers of the content. A common parallel in the sedition cases from the colonial period was the emphasis on the term “disaffection”, implying anything lacking affection. In Queen Empress v. Ramchandra Narayan[3]it was held by the court that the treatment of disaffection is same as spreading feelings of hatred against the government. The condition was held invalid by the Federal Court in Niharendu Dutt Majumdar v. King Emperor[4], where it categorically stated the presence of “factor leading to incitement of violence” as an essential to be held guilty of sedition, but the decision was overruled again by the Pricy Council[5] in 1944.
Post-independence, in 1951, the Tara Singh case[6] was the first case of a court giving its opinion on the Section 124A as void after the advent of the constitution. And soon after, the Allahabad High Court in Ram Nandan v. State[7], declared the Section void. The judiciary had hitherto interpreted Section 124A of the IPC as contradictory to Article 19 of the constitution. The year 1951 however, saw the first constitutional amendment, where the maintenance of public order and incitement of an offence were added as grounds to restrict the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19. Post this, the legal precedence and the judgements were overruled by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the 1962 landmark judgement of Kedarnath v. State of Bihar[8], where it ruled that the Section 124A is not constitutionally void and is not in violation of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. However, the presence of incitement, attempt to overthrow the ruling government and a threat to security of state were held as essentials of sedition by the court. These were upheld in Balwant Singh v. State of Punjab[9].
Ever since the law has remained more or less unchanged, with important judgements of various courts adding a layer of detailing. Be it the Delhi HC verdict[10] emphasising on intention of the accused or the Allahabad HC judgement in the Arun Jaitlee case[11], pronouncing criticism of judicial decisions is not sedition, among many others. But the core nature of the Section has remained the same since the Kedarnath judgement.
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