Law Commission of India, Consultation paper on Sedition, Aug 30, 2018<\/strong><\/h5>\n8.1 In a democracy, singing from the same songbook is not a benchmark of patriotism<\/em><\/strong>. People should be at liberty to show their affection towards their country in their own way. For doing the same, one might indulge in constructive criticism or debates, pointing out the loopholes in the policy of the Government. Expressions used in such thoughts might be harsh and unpleasant to some, but that does not render the actions to be branded seditious<\/em><\/strong>. Section 124A should be invoked only in cases where the intention behind any actis to disrupt public order or to overthrow the Government with violence and illegal means.<\/p>\n8.2 Every irresponsible exercise of right to free speech and expression cannot be termed seditious. For merely expressing a thought that is not in consonance with the policy of the Government of the day, a person should not be charged under the section. Expression of frustration over the state of affairs, for instance, calling India no country for women\u2018, or a country that is racist for its obsession with skin colour as a marker of beauty are critiques that do not threaten the idea of a nation. Berating the country or a particular aspect of it, cannot and should not be treated as sedition.<\/em><\/strong> If the country is not open to positive criticism, there lies little difference between the pre-and post-independence eras. Right to criticise one\u2018s own history and the right to offend are rights protected under free speech<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n8.3 While it is essential to protect national integrity, it should not be misused as free speech. Dissent and criticism are essential ingredients of a robust public debate on policy issues as part of vibrant democracy. Therefore, every restriction on free speech and expression must be carefully scrutinised to avoid unwarranted restrictions.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] By Rajesh Sinha The entire discourse on Congress promise to scrap the sedition law, painting it as anti-national and pro-secessionist is based on a distorted picture projected successfully by the BJP to grab the initiative in setting the agenda for debate. Section 124A that deals with sedition is only one of the ten in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":60150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4],"tags":[209,86,70076,70658,52368,1399,70657,70656,211],"yst_prominent_words":[70651,70647,3813,8108,55501,9038,24875,70645,55499,70653,55653,70654,70646,70648,70650,70644,30864,70655,70652,70649],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2019\/04\/08182154\/Free-speeech.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60147"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=60147"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=60147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}