Government panel backs retaining sedition law, recommends increasing prison term

New Delhi, 02nd June 2023: The Indian law commission authorities have strongly backed the sedition law and claimed that it should be retained in the country’s system.

The commission also recommended that the imprisonment tenure for sedition be increased from 3 years to 7 years in prison, and emphasised that repealing the law would be ‘turning a blind eye to the glaring ground realities in India.’

The sedition statute was challenged in court, and the Supreme Court suspended criminal trials and judicial procedures under the law last year while enabling the administration to reexamine it. The government then requested that the Statute Commission review the statute.

According to the legislation Commission’s study, abolishing the sedition legislation entirely might have “serious adverse ramifications for the security and integrity of the country, with subversive forces having a free hand to further their sinister agenda as a result.”

The report recommends amendments in the process before filing the sedition and suggests that an FIR of the offence should be registered only after a preliminary inquiry is completed by the police officers and after the permission of the Central or the State governments.