Sedition Laws in India: Need to Abolish the Colonial Legacy

India is a democratic country and every citizen here has a right associated with him to put forward his ideas, viewpoints, and grievances. Freedom of Speech and Expression is one of the most prominent Fundamental Rights given by the Indian Constitution. Considering the massive progress in thought and expression of individuals, and the resultant manifestation in Indian laws, there is little or almost no need to have colonial provision of sedition. Even United Kingdom has scraped its sedition law with a message to the other countries to do so. But Indian Parliament have never ever attempted to remove this provision. Rather, The recent instance of invoking the sedition laws in various instances clearly shows that the government is applying this to curb the voices of dissent. The present work revisits the constituent assembly debates in relation to freedom of speech and expression, continued by the judicial trends in relation to the balance between freedom of speech and reasonable restrictions, thereby narrowing the scope of sedition. Further, some pre-independent sedition charges and some recent application of seditious charges has been mentioned to depict the manner as to how such provision has been proved to be sword in the hand of government to suppress dissent and hence, there is need to say bye bye to colonial sedition law.