Centre is 'buying time' with its review on sedition law: Mahua Moitra
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New Delhi: Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra came down heavily on the government on Tuesday saying that the government's plan to review the sedition law was "just a ploy to buy time", according to NDTV.
Mahua Moitra along with the Editors' Guild of India and others has been calling for scrapping the colonial-era sedition law, which the British used against the freedom fighters.
Two days after firmly defending the law, the Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court it has decided to review the legislation. Meanwhile, Mahua Moitra and others challenged the sedition law in the court.
Meanwhile, the government attributed its change of heart to inspiration from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the report said.
The government told the Supreme Court to wait for the review by a "competent forum" as well as declaring that PM Modi was in favour of defending civil liberties.
Mahua Moitra told NDTV that the matter deserved to be referred to a seven-judge bench.
The government was planning to review the sedition law after being faced with the possibility of a seven-judge bench reviewing the law, according to her.
She also said that the sedition law has been around for 150 years and BJP has been in power for nearly eight years. With the move to review the law, the government according to her is buying time.
The government's move is like asking others to stay off as they know what they want to do. She also said that the government would sit on it for years.
The petition to scrap the law came to the court just as both central and the state governments use the law to silence critics, according to the report.
Moitra termed the use of the law to silence criticism a misuse of the law and said the protection against such misuse, put in place by the Supreme Court in 1962, has been completely disregarded, the report said.
The top court in 1962 said that criticism of the government could not be construed as a seditious offence accompanied by incitement or a call for violence.
The Trinamool MP said the matter should be referred to a seven-judge bench, and also mentioned that the Attorney General already said he was ready to argue.