Anuradha Bhasin- senior journalist from Kashmir and the editor-in-chief of Kashmir times has moved the apex Court in India to challenge the constitutional validity of the sedition law.
Recently it was reported that a total of 326 cases were registered in the country under the controversial colonial-era penal law on sedition in the first term of Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister (2014 and 2019). Out of these only six persons were convicted.
Anuradha Bhasin has moved to the Supreme Court to challenge the law along with Patricia Mukhim- a Meghalaya-based columnist and the editor of the Shillong Times, NDTV reported.
Mukhim and Bhasin in their petition have maintained that the “use of sedition to intimidate, silence and punish journalists has continued unrestrained…”
The objective of maintaining “public order” can be achieved by less restrictive means, they have argued, adding, as many others have done before them, that the sedition charge casts a “chilling effect on the exercise of the right to free speech and expression”.
The petition further states that words like ‘hatred’, ‘disaffection’ and ‘disloyalty’ that characterize use of the sedition charge are “incapable of precise construction, and are hit by the doctrine of vagueness and overbreadth, thereby falling foul of Article 14 of the Constitution”.
In the past, various Journalists, activists have been targeted with the sedition law, which many call as an attempt of the Narendra Modi-led BJP Government to muzzle freedom of expression in India.
Leichombam Erendro, a Manipur-based activist arrested in May on sedition charges – for writing “cow dung and cow urine doesn’t work” on Facebook was released from jail on Tuesday after a Supreme Court notice that said his “detention (is a) violation of the right to life and personal liberty”.
Journalist Kishorechandra Wangkhem, who was arrested at the same time as Erendro and on the same charges, remains in jail.
Pertinently, the Supreme Court last week in a major observation, said the British-era sedition law was “colonial” and asked the government if it was still needed 75 years after Independence.