New Delhi (TIP): The Supreme Court Thursday, June 3, quashed the sedition case registered against senior journalist Vinod Dua in Himachal Pradesh.
The verdict was pronounced by a bench led by Justice U.U. Lalit on Dua’s petition seeking quashing of the case registered against him in connection with a video uploaded to YouTube last year. In the video, Dua is criticising the Narendra Modi government’s handling of the Covid-19 lockdown.
The bench extensively relied on the principles outlined in the Kedar Nath judgment to give relief to Dua.
The court said that the senior journalist’s statement “if read in the light of the principles emanating” from the judgment and “against the backdrop of the circumstances when they were made, can at best be termed as expression of disapprobation of actions of the Government and its functionaries so that prevailing situation could be addressed quickly and efficiently”.
Delivered in 1962, the Kedar Nath judgment upheld the constitutional validity of sedition law in India. However, it held that free speech, discussions on matters of government functioning and their criticism, and freedom of press are “essential for the proper functioning of the processes of popular government”.
“It must however be clarified that every Journalist will be entitled to protection in terms of Kedar Nath Singh, as every prosecution under Sections 124A (sedition) and 505 (publishing or circulating rumour) of the IPC must be in strict conformity with the scope and ambit of said Sections as explained in, and completely in tune with the law laid down in Kedar Nath Singh,” it ruled.
To prosecute Dua for the alleged offences would violate his rights of freedom of speech and expression, the court held.
Thursday’s verdict comes days after another apex court bench decided to examine the interpretation of sedition law, particularly in the light of media rights and free speech.
Justice Lalit’s bench rejected Dua’s plea to restrain state police from registering sedition cases against any media personnel with 10 years’ experience unless cleared by a committee comprising the Chief Justice of the state high court or a judge designated by him, the leader of the opposition and the home minister of the state.
To allow such a plea would be directly encroaching the domain of the legislature, the court said. Source: The Print