Opinion Express View on sedition case against The Wire editor: Heavy-handed state

The Assam police have summoned journalist and The Wire editor Siddharth Varadarajan in a case of sedition, over an article on Operation Sindoor carried by the online portal. The article carried comments by India’s military attache to Indonesia on IAF jets and military tactics employed during Operation Sindoor and was widely reported. It is now part of police case diaries for being an act “endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India”. On August 12, the Supreme Court directed the Assam police to not take any “coercive steps” against Varadarajan. However, in defiance of the Court order, the police registered a second FIR in a different district. Invoking the provisions of sedition for a news report, selectively and unfairly deploying state machinery against journalists, raises serious questions about violation of due process and infringement of fundamental rights.

The Supreme Court, in its landmark Kedar Nath Singh judgment (1962), made it clear that criticism of the government, however harsh, is not sedition unless it directly incites violence or fosters public disorder. In May 2022, the SC stayed the operation of the law after forming a “prima facie view that the rigour of Section 124A of IPC is not in tune with the current social milieu…” Sensing the mood of the Court, the government asked for an opportunity to repeal the law before it was struck down. The SC said that it would “hope and expect” that the government would refrain from registering any FIR, continuing any investigation or taking any coercive measures by invoking Section 124A of the IPC while the provision was under consideration. But in 2023, when the new Nyaya Sanhitas were brought in, the law on sedition was retained with a mere change in nomenclature. The name has changed from “rajdroh” to “deshdroh”, but the dispiriting misuse of the law continues.

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“To allow a journalist to be subjected to multiple complaints and to the pursuit of remedies traversing multiple states and jurisdictions when faced with successive FIRs and complaints bearing the same foundation has a stifling effect on the exercise of that freedom. This will effectively destroy the freedom of the citizen to know of the affairs of governance in the nation and the right of the journalist to ensure an informed society,” said former CJI D Y Chandrachud in May 2020, while granting bail to Arnab Goswami. As the SC hears challenges to the new sedition law, the Assam government must urgently heed the court’s caution.