Written by Hritam Saha
*See the clarification below
The news and electronic media have reported that the sedition law, that is Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), has been made inoperative by the Supreme Court of India until the Centre completes the re-examination of the said Section. The said operation practically means that no State can register an FIR under Section 124A of the IPC.

The Supreme Court first questioned the Centre that whether the court can issue direction to the States for not using Section 124A till the Centre completes its re-examination to which the Centre replied that the constitutional validity of Section 124A has been certified in the Kedar Nath Singh v. State Of Bihar judgment (1962 AIR 955) by a constitutional bench of 5 judges, and therefore, it would be inappropriate to make a constitutionally valid Section inoperative by a bench of three judges.

The Centre also stated although the criminal law, that is IPC, and the criminal procedure, that is CrPC, both are there in the Concurrent List (under which both the Centre and the State can make laws, Entry 1&2), policing and public order exclusively fall under the State List (under which the State can exclusively make laws, Entry 1&2) subject to the exceptions provided under Article 249, 250 & 252 of the Constitution of India. Therefore, the direction of the Centre to the States for not using Section 124A will not bind the State.

The Supreme Court then went on to order as under:

'It will be appropriate not to use this provision of law till further re-examination is over. We hope Centre and state will desist from registering an FIR under 124A or initiate proceeding under the same till re-examination is over.'

'We hope and expect the States will refrain from registering any FIR, continuing investigation, or taking coercive steps under 124 A IPC when it is being reconsidered by the Centre.'

A normal English reader would understand that the Honorable Supreme Court of India has issued a combination of recommendations and expectations that both the Centre and States should refrain from using the provision of Section 124A, and therefore, the court has issued no binding direction to the state and Centre debarring them from using Section 124A and such is evident from the following paragraph:

'Should such cases be registered, the parties are at liberty to approach the court. The court to expeditiously dispose of the same.'

Therefore, the court has issued a non-binding recommendation to the States and Centre not to use Section 124A of IPC but has issued mandatory direction to the courts for disposing of sedition cases if registered by the States and Centre.

Interpreting something could be a subjective exercise but over-interpreting something is a foolish exercise.
*[Clarification by way of an addition
In this article, we had written that the Supreme Court hasn't made Section 124A of the IPC inoperative.
We just want to clarify by adding that the court has made Section 124A inoperative for the courts but not for the executive, which means the governments are not debarred from registering an FIR under Section 124A but when the case will be presented for hearing before the court, the court will dismiss the case without getting into the merits of the same. This is evident from paragraphs number 8(b) and 8(c) of the 11th May 2022 order authored in S.G. VOMBATKERE v. UNION OF INDIA.
Paragraph 8(b) articulates the hope and expectation of the Supreme Court hoping and expecting that the Centre and States will not enforce Section 124A, therefore such is not a direction upon the governments and ergo not binding upon the same. Paragraph 8(c) says that if a new case has been registered under Section 124A, the court hearing the case is requested by the Supreme Court to decide the case by taking into account the present order and stand of the Central government, which means the hearing court is bound by the hope and expectation of the Supreme Court and also by the stand of the Union of Bharat, which virtually says that Section 124A is not tenable in its present form. No court will disrespect the said expectation and hope of the Supreme Court by not upholding the same. Therefore, the three judges bench of the Supreme Court has done things indirectly which it could not have done directly as it cannot stay the operation of Section 124A because it has been upheld by a constitutional bench of five judges of the Supreme Court.
Paragraph 8(d) of the said order can give birth to a question as to how come the Supreme Court can stay the pending proceeding of all the sedition cases as it cannot declare Section 124A inoperative. The answer to the same question is staying a pending case does not make a Section involved in the pending case inoperative however debarring the registration of cases under a Section makes a Section inoperative.
The present judgement of the Supreme Court of India is a master class of driving the car by not sitting inside it but by remaining outside and driving it with a remote.']

When there is a deadlock at the headlock of corona and politics....

[Continued].... the people of India have to resort to voting at the expense of their life; political ideologies incarnate into political idiosyncrasies incarcerating the idea of the 'Union of States'; a relay race of shifting responsibility without a finishing point takes place between the government of a State and the government of India and the arrival of many other alike beings take place.All when summed up makes the life and limbs of the common people susceptible to the ears and eyes of the COVID-19.History is a witness, which when called upon, has reiteratedly enunciated that war and crisis makes a government unipersonal. Such power then suffuses over every branch, for instance, Reporters Across Borders purported that 38 countries have hijacked freedom of the press.Many governments have enacted emergency laws to address the pandemic, like new powers of detention, closing non-essential businesses, limiting public gatherings and movement, monitoring the streets to ensure they remain inside.Some countries have also invoked emergency like Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Moldova and Romania. These actions though made in good faith have inseparable repercussions, for instance in Philipines, people are violently detained, belaboured and even killed for being cold with the restrictive orders, and when the actions of the authorities were questioned they justified themselves by colouring their cause of actions with unintelligible crayons. Miniscule of Confrontations has also been witnessed between the armed forces and people in the United States, Greece and Germany.It is a watertight proposition that lockdown has sent the human rights in hibernation though such has been done with good intentions. Still, severing the accountability from the largest picture of lockdown was a cancerous dream that indeed took the form of reality.In India, the largest picture was the inexplicable ever walking hunger march of the migrant workers which perhaps would remain a never-ending march for their families. The government of a state has invested their burden to another state stating the workers are not domiciled in their state. But that is why they are called migrant workers, not just workers. In such circumstances, the centre had graced the situation with absolute silence even though they have conveyed ration to the states but had not pressed anything for the migrants. At that time the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, deemed fit to take a resolution of disappearing with the sunset and not to rise with the sun.Are not these instances exemplifying the uninterrupted dictation of the governments?During the election this year, a newspaper in its print considered voting as the 'dance of democracy'. But I think it was a curtain-raiser. The subsequent substantive of the story was the 'uninvited dance of life shedding'.Politics in simpler and unharmful terms are disagreements that are conciliated and reconciled by deliberations.But here exists palatable incommunicado between the people in power due to their political constipation. But their speeches at biggish stages were that incandescent that it called upon horde of people to throng in their sabhas.Later, it was understood that people were there to assuage their stomach emptiness, not to imbibe the rhetorics of ever germinating politicians, because the number of people who were present there in a party's sabha did not commensurate with the number of votes that the party has received.The pandemic had a huge impact upon the economy, resulting in the imbalance of an already imbalanced socio-economic structure of the society which has been the blue and black to those people whose stomach's appetite solely compliments their daily actions.Comparing the GDP havoc endured by the countries, to approximate one country's efficacy over another against this pandemic is unwanted because every country has been unavoidably compelled by the virus to receive its invitation of downfall in every aspect, and the attendance of the people of some countries to such invitation has been either more or less but not null.Yes, it is indisputable that unemployment, societal disjunction, hunger, domestic violence, depression, etc., all together have increased. But can anybody assert that these were never there before this pandemic? I think the answer would be a big NO.'Health is wealth.' When we say this, things like unemployment and poverty are very much present, thus, we don't have a vibrant economy and the corollary is 'no wealth'. Hence, the other name of 'health is wealth' is, "as there is no wealth there is no health".Some say that a vibrant health system would not have been a guarantee against this pandemic. Yes, indeed, it could not have been a guarantee but it could have been a warranty, that is assurance rather than the commitment, that is guarantee. But here, the government knows that a vibrant health system could not be a shield of guarantee without even trying to make it happen. The drops of Astrology and drops of science are both in positives. Therefore they repel each other.The game of touchable and untouchable, black and white, etc. have been widely familiar for human beings across the world. Like in India, the 'so-called upper castes' purport that they would be contaminated if they come into contact with the 'untouchables' and somewhat similar reasons are for the differences between the whites and blacks. Hence, its a game of illusory contagiousness. But the game is a bit different in the case of COVID-19. If an 'upper caste' person comes into contact with an 'untouchable', he would not get contaminated because in the light of science, there is no trace of contamination. But yeah, those people could get mentally contaminated as they claim to be. In contrast to such, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which spreads COVID-19) can spread to all humans. Yes, you've again read it correctly, HUMANS. It does not discriminates between touchables and untouchables or whites and blacks, and one more point, this contamination can take the lives of the people, whereas in the previous case, the mentally contaminated ones take the lives of those who had 'contaminated' them as a compensation for their illusory damages.And what politics does in such cases, it encashes such disaster to transform it into a never-ending one for the sake of meeting their political ends, where end means an extension of infinite hedonism with sheer impunity.But this time, politics has averted from the game which was unfolding against the healthcare personnels. Why? Because such a game would have inflicted everyone including politics. Therefore, politics obituaries for its administrators and not for those who have chosen politics to govern them.Let's talk about the elections. Were there no ways available to cherish democracy other than to conduct the elections in this pandemic? If no, then were there no ways left for the politics to witness people's throng without creating the opportunity for the people to reach out to politics physically? Was it needed to apprise people about their past and would be, via rallies?Many in the history of India had shed blood to earn freedom, we, the people of India have tenaciously deliberated to gift ourselves a written Constitution and democracy is a vital cog of it. As said that voting is a 'dance of democracy' and to actualize democracy, elections are conducted. "Had the framers of our constitution ever conceived the thought of witnessing such dance at the expense of people's life?"We are so determined to see the dance of democracy that we have forgotten to evoke the gorgeous dance of the celebrities. At least such would have impeded us to witness the buffoon dance of the politicians and perhaps could have protected lives, but yes, the latter can be witnessed free of cost and also with a toast of food. And why not? It is performed every five years.The multi-polarization of political beliefs at the expense of uniform goal in national interest and discrimination of religious beliefs have now been adjoined by the discrimination of the technological accessibility of people as there has been seen a sharp division among classes regarding the technological means.Has this pandemic compartmentalized human beings in every aspect? The answer seems to be still under construction.The deadlock at the headlock of corona and politics may completely end one day but for the time being, the relaxation of the deadlock is in progress at the effacement of the population.But the question that will remain to be discussed is, "What would happen after the clearance of the deadlock at the headlock of COVID-19 and politics". As of now, COVID-19 is in a headlock with politics and vice versa. But after the expungement of the pandemic, will the headlock by politics to the livelihood of people, would remain? Headlock by rich to the poor, employment to unemployment, vibrant medical structure to precarious medical structure, etc? The future would author and the past would readout.The gravitation of the earth pulls people down for the sake of stability. But the human structured rockets supersede this pull to expel itself from the earth to the space. We human beings are not rockets. Therefore no one is more and no one is less in respect of being stable. Therefore one may discriminate against an individual in every aspect and respect other than the means of stability. Because stability is the law of nature but not of humans.Views are personalWritten by Hritam Saha(Edited by Siddhant Sharma)

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