Supreme Court refers sedition law pleas to 5-judge bench

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday referred to a constitution bench of at least five judges a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the IPC provision on sedition, a month after the Centre introduced in Parliament bills to replace the colonial-era penal statutes IPC, CrPC and the Evidence Act, proposing among other things the repeal of the sedition law. The apex court declined to accept the Centre's fervent request that reference of the petitions to a larger bench be deferred as Parliament is in the process of "re-enacting" the provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and a bill has been placed before a standing committee.

The court said assuming that the bill, which proposes among other things the repeal of the sedition law and introduction of a new provision with a wider definition of the offence, becomes a law, it cannot be applied with retrospective effect. “We are not inclined to accept the request for deferring the consideration of the constitutional challenge in these batch of matters for more than one reason,” said the bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud.

The bench, also comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra observed that Section 124A (sedition) of the IPC continues to remain in the statute book, and even if the new bill becomes a law, there is a presumption that any new law in the penal statute will have prospective and not retrospective effect. “Consequently, the validity of the prosecution which would be launched so long as Section 124A continues to remain in the statute, will have to be assessed on that basis,” it said.