New Delhi: The Supreme Court has agreed to examine the constitutional validity of Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which reintroduces the colonial sedition law. The apex court on August 8 issued notice in a petition that challenges section 152 of the BNS which was previously codified as Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The plea, filed by the Union government on the petition filed by retired Major General S.G. Vombatkere, through advocate S. Prasanna, claims that Section 152 of the BNS has "revived and repackaged" the sedition provisions in the IPC, after the Supreme Court had barred the filing of FIRs under Section 124A of the IPC.

“Though the language has been altered, in substantive context, it still criminalises vague and broad categories of speech and expressions as ‘subversive activity’, ‘encouragement of separatist feelings’, and acts ‘endangering unity or integrity of India’- remains the same or is even more expansive,” the petitioner has claimed. 

Vombatkere was among petitioners who had challenged the validity of the IPC section too. In May 2022, a bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana had suspended the usage of the statute, preventing the police from invoking the section against anyone. Justice Ramana had also stayed the probe and trial in existing cases. The court had called for re-examination of the provision. Later in April 2023, a bench led by the then CJI D.Y. Chandrachud had referred the issue to a five- judge bench and asked to decide on the validity of the IPC section.

Last year, the IPC came to be replaced with the BNS law but the provision was reintroduced. Many legal experts and activists have raised concerns over the existence of the provision in the statute. 

The plea points out that, “Section 152 criminalises a wide spectrum of expressive conduct, including those who 'purposely or knowingly' use words – spoken, written, electronic, symbolic or financial – to 'excite or attempt to excite' secession, rebellion or subversive activities. Its sweeping language, including phrases like 'encouraging feelings of separatist activities', fails the test of constitutional validity due to vagueness, overbreadth, chilling effect, disproportionate punishment and absence of proximate nexus to public disorder.”

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