Supreme Court to hear pleas against validity of sedition law on September 12

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on September 12 a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of colonial-era provision of sedition under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on September 12 a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of colonial-era provision of sedition under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

These pleas had come up on May 1 before the apex court which had deferred the hearing after the Centre said it was at an advanced stage of consultation on re-examining the penal provision.

On August 11, in a landmark move to overhaul colonial-era criminal laws, the Centre had introduced in the Lok Sabha three bills to replace the IPC, CrPC and the Indian Evidence Act, proposing among other things the repeal of sedition law and introducing a new provision with a wider definition of the offence.

As per the cause list of September 12 uploaded on the apex court website, the pleas challenging the validity of section 124A (sedition) of the IPC would come up for hearing before a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.

While hearing these petitions on May 1, the top court had noted the submission of Attorney General R Venkataramani that the government had initiated the process to re-examine section 124A of the IPC.