NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court that in deference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s views, the government will go for a comprehensive reconsideration of the sedition provision, Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, for necessary pruning and provisioning of safeguards to curb misuse and requested the court to defer scrutiny of the provision.
Indicating that such an exercise would possibly be carried out via the legislative route in Parliament, the Centre said, “The SC may not invest time in examining the validity of Section 124A again (its validity was upheld by a Constitution bench in the Kedar Nath Singh vs State of Bihar case in 1962) and be pleased to await the exercise of reconsideration to be undertaken by the Union government before a forum where such reconsideration is constitutionally permitted.”
The Centre’s affidavit came two days after it had defended the sedition law and urged the SC to dismiss pleas challenging it. The affidavit, filed a day before a three-judge bench headed by CJI NV Ramana is to hear the case, urged the SC to indefinitely defer adjudication of the colonial era law enacted in 1860.
