NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday granted more time to the Central government to file its response on the pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the colonial era sedition law. The court said it would hear on May 10 the arguments on the legal question of whether the matter should be referred to a larger bench.
Seeking more time to file the affidavit on behalf of the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that the draft was ready but needed to be discussed with the authorities. “Two reasons why we can’t file reply: draft reply is prepared by lawyers and needs approval from the competent authorities, and another reason is new fresh matters were filed later,” he said.
This question of referring the matter to a larger bench arose when the top court asked senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for some of the of the petitioners, that a bunch of petitions had been filed with the prayer to reconsider the 1962 judgment in Kedarnath Singh v State of Bihar case, where a five-judge bench had upheld the constitutional validity of sedition law, that is Section 124 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, while watering down some aspects of it.
The top court has asked both parties to file their written responses on the question of referring the matter to a larger bench. Sibal submitted that the top court can individually deal with the law and decide whether it should stay or go as times had changed since the Kedar Nath verdict was delivered.
Attorney General K K Venugopal, who is assisting the bench in the matter in his personal capacity, said the misuse of the provision, as it happened in the case of a Maharashtra MP for reciting Hanuman Chalisa, had to be stopped by laying down guidelines. However, the top law officer said there was no need to refer the verdict in the Kedar Nath case to a bench seven judges.