“EVERY JOURNALIST ENTITLED TO PROTECTION AGAINST SEDITION”

In a landmark order, the Court quashed a sedition case against Vinod Dua by invoking the 1962 Kedar Nath case. It said a citizen has the right to criticise the government as long as he does not incite people to violence

- Adarsh Patel

THE Supreme Court on June 3 quashed a sedition case against journalist Vinod Dua in Shimla. The case was filed by a local BJP leader in Himachal Pradesh on May 6, 2020, over Dua's YouTube show. It invoked charges under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including sedition, public nuisance, printing defamatory materials and public mischief. The complaint alleged that Dua in his show had accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of using deaths and terror attacks” to get votes.

The bench of Justices UU Lalit and Vineet Saran said: “Every journalist is entitled to protection under the Kedar Nath Singh judgment (the famous verdict of 1962 on the scope and ambit of offence of sedition in the IPC).” It said that every prosecution under Sections 124A and 505 of the IPC must be in strict conformity with the scope and ambit of said Sections as explained in, and completely in tune with the law laid down in Kedar Nath Singh.

In the Kedar Nath Singh case in 1962, five judges said that “allegedly seditious speech and expression may be punished only if the speech is an 'incitement to 'violence, or “public disorder. It had upheld the validity of Section 124A (sedition) of the IPC, and said that sedition charges could not be invoked against a citizen for criticism of government actions as it would be in conformity with the freedom of speech and expression.

However, the Court did not allow the second prayer made by Dua in his petition that no FIR be registered against a person belonging to the media with at least 10 years of experience unless cleared by a Committee. The Court said that constitution of the committee completely outside the scope of the statutory framework. Any relief granted in terms of the second prayer would certainly, in our view, amounts to encroachment upon the filed reserved for the legislature”.