The expression of a view which is a dissent from a decision taken by the central government itself cannot be said to be seditious, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.

The court dismissed a PIL seeking sedition charges against National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and stripping of his MP status for allegedly seeking China’s help to restore the full provisions of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hemant Gupta, while dismissing the PIL as being a “publicity interest litigation”, imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the joint petitioners, Rajat Sharma and Neh Srivastava.
The court’s assertion comes at a time a clamour has been growing for repealing the British-era sedition law that has been invoked against many dissenters, including climate activist Disha Ravi.

“The expression of a view which is a dissent from a decision taken by the Central government itself cannot be said to be seditious. There is nothing in the statement which we find so offensive as to give a cause of action for a court to initiate proceedings,” the bench of Justices Kaul and Gupta said while dismissing the PIL against Abdullah.

“Not only that the petitioners have nothing to do with the subject matter and this is clearly a case of publicity litigation interests for the petitioners only to get their names in press. We must discourage such endeavours,” the bench added.

“The writ petition is dismissed with costs of Rs 50,000 to be deposited with the Supreme Court Advocates Welfare Fund within four weeks,” said Justice Kaul, who dictated the order.

The petitioners, pleading to be social activists in their petition filed through advocate Shiv Sagar Tiwari, had claimed that Abdullah had on September 24, 2020, made a “seditious” statement in Kashmir that he will get Article 370 restored with the help of China.

It was also submitted that on the same day, Abdullah made a statement that “ye tumhare baap ki sampati nahi hai”, referring to Kashmir, “which is totally anti-national and seditious”.

The petitioner submitted that Abduallah had completely failed in abiding by his constitutional duties as provided under Article 51 A (to uphold the Constitution).

“Since his statement was seditious, the petitioner urged the court to direct the Union government to strip him of his status as MP. If the action of Mr Farooq Abdullah is allowed and he is allowed to continue as member of Parliament, it would amount to approval of all anti-national activities by anyone,” the petition had claimed.