14

Aug

Old Wine in New Bottle

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New Delhi, August 14, 2023

The word sedition will now be replaced by secession and the offences will be tried under Section 150.

Amitabh Srivastava

The people were pleasantly surprised when going against the recommendations of the Law Commission recommendations Home Minister Amit Shah repealed the obnoxious Sedition Law on the last day of Monsson Session of Parliament.

The issue was being debated in the Supreme Court for some years. However, one must give the Devil his due as the Centre had assured the Supreme Court that it would bring dreaded and one of the most misused laws if we ignore Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and Urban Naxal punishments which continue to be in the statute books as far as we know.

The word sedition will now be known as be replaced by secession and the offences will be tried under Section 150.

Even the sceptics of the NDA were pleasantly surprised by the speech of Amit Shah as it made a lot of sense after the meaningless harangue by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi a day earlier in his 90-minute reply to the no confidence motion.

He totally stole the show by making some grandiose announcements. The thrust of the announcements was that the NDA was going to replace the Colonial British Era Indian Penal Code which was meant to punish people with a Bhartiya Law that would give justice to people.

So what did he do?

He renamed the Indian Penal Code as Bhartiya Nyaya Samhita, the Criminal Procedure Act becomes Bhartiya Nagrik Sanhita and the Evidence Act becomes Bhartiya Sakshya.

But judged on the ground reality do the new laws really provide justice rather than punishment? Not really. The News release on the day the announcement was made  clearly said that punishments and penalties have been made more stringent.

Talking to this writer a knowledgeable Supreme Court lawyer talking anonymously said, “This is old wine in new bottle. You will see that when the details come out. Don’t quote me but the entire system is working towards fulfilling an agenda. And there is no way we can stop this.”

Amod K Kanth, former DGP and a former super cop gave a cautious welcome to these announcements because he has always been fighting for reforming the Indian Penal Code 1860 which was meant to crush the 1857 mutiny.

His second autobiography ‘Khaki on Broken Wings’ published by Bloomsbury is full of anecdotes where he has gone against the system and said that there were several procedural issues with the legal system which does not provide justice to the poor and the needy while helping the privileged to escape the law with impunity.

Personally, when he tried to implement the reformed Police Act in a UT with sincerity he was removed from the post of DGP.

Asaduddin Owaisi, one of the best legal minds among politicos and head of AIMIM who is normally known to play from both sides said on his TV talk that nothing had changed. “They have replaced Section 124 A with Section 150” he said.

Former IPS officers like Yashovardan Azad, while welcoming the replacement of Sedition with Secession said that the crux on the problem is that there is no move to reform the police.

“No one wants police reforms. The CMs don’t want it, the Police officers don’t want it. Then there is the problem of infrastructure. If they want digital reports, forensic examination in every district and the case to be disposed of within a limited time frame they have to invest big in infrastructure. But lee me assert again that relacing the sedition law is a big development and it should be welcomed,” he stated.

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