SC quashes FIR alleging sedition against Vinod Dua
In a relief to senior journalist Vinod Dua, the Supreme Court on Thursday quashed an FIR registered by Himachal Pradesh police alleging sedition against him for making comments critical of the Central government’s handling of the first phase of the 21-day long nationwide lockdown. The said video was uploaded by Mr Dua on YouTube for his “The Vinod Due Show” on March 30, 2020.
Quashing the FIR, Justice Uday Umesh Lalit, heading a bench also comprising Justice Vineet Saran, said, “Given the drift of the entire talk show and all the statements put together, it cannot be said to have crossed the limits set out in the 1962 constitution bench judgment and certainly not made with the intent to incite people…”
Referring to the allegations against Mr Dua, Justice Lalit speaking for the bench said, “In our view, the statements by the petitioner (Dua)…, if read in the light of the principles emanating from the decision in Kedar Nath Singh 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.”
The statements by Mr Dua in his programme, the court said, were “certainly not made with the intent to incite people or showed tendency to create disorder or disturbance of public peace by resort to violence” and petitioner was well “within the permissible limits laid down in the decision of this court in Kedar Nath Singh.”
Noting certain factual discrepancies in the date of things that had happened prior and after the lockdown was declared in March 2020, the court concluded that Mr Dua’s programme was not intended to incite people or create disharmony and was within the professional limits
“We are, therefore, of the firm view that the prosecution of the petitioner for the offences punishable under Sections 124A and
505 (1) (b) of the IPC would be unjust,” the court said.
“Those offences, going by the allegations in the FIR and other attending circumstances, are not made out at all and any prosecution in respect thereof would be violative of the rights of the petitioner guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution,” the court said in its order.
However, the court declined Mr Dua’s plea that before registering a case against a journalist with 10 years of professional standing, the complaint should be examined by a high-powered committee.
A five-judge constitution bench by its January 20, 1962, judgment in Kedar Nath Singh vs State of Bihar case had said, “…comments, however strongly worded, expressing disapprobation of actions of the government, without exciting those feelings which generate the inclination to cause public disorder by acts of violence, would not be penal.”
It had further said, “In other words, disloyalty to government established by law is not the same thing as commenting in strong terms upon the measures or acts of government, or its agencies, so as to ameliorate the condition of the people or to secure the cancellation or alteration of those acts or measures by lawful means… without exciting those feelings of enmity and disloyalty…”