Four years after putting on hold sedition law, SC says trials can proceed if accused has no objection

Four years after putting on hold trials in sedition cases in courts across the country, the Supreme Court on Thursday (May 21, 2026) said that courts can proceed with trials and appeals involving the offence of sedition under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) if the accused had no objection.

The clarification was issued by a Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M. Pancholi while hearing a plea filed by a petitioner who has remained incarcerated for 17 years in a case involving sedition charges.

“The petitioner’s grievance is that he has no objection if his criminal appeal is heard in its entirety, including with respect to the charge under Section 124A. That being so, we clarify... that wherever the accused has no objection to the continuation of the trial, appeal or any other proceeding in which he has been charge-sheeted under Section 124A IPC, there shall be no impediment for courts to decide such matters on merits and in accordance with law,” the Bench observed.

In an interim order issued on May 11, 2022, the top court had put on hold trials in sedition cases pending before courts until the government completed its promised exercise “to re-examine and re-consider” the colonial-era provision.

The court had also made it clear that it “hopes and expects” the Centre and States to refrain from registering FIRs, continuing investigations, or taking coercive measures under Section 124A while the “reconsideration” of the provision was underway.

A Bench headed by then Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana had also observed that while it was “cognisant of security interests and integrity of the State on one hand,” and the “civil liberties of citizens on the other”, there was a requirement to “balance” both sets of considerations.

In the present case, the Bench directed the Madhya Pradesh High Court to forthwith take up the petitioner’s appeal, along with connected matters, and decide them on merits.

The petitioner had been convicted by a trial court in 2017 on charges including sedition, promoting enmity under the IPC, offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and the Arms Act, 1959. He has since been lodged in a central jail in Bhopal.

In February, Chief Justice Kant had orally observed that the Union government’s decision to review the offence of sedition under the old IPC cannot prevent Parliament from reintroducing a similar provision in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), as the legislature functions independently of the executive.

The observation had come while the court was hearing a batch of public interest litigations challenging various provisions of the BNS, including Section 152, which criminalises acts deemed to endanger the sovereignty, unity and integrity of the country. The petitioners had argued that the section was a “repackaged” version of the colonial-era sedition law.

“Though the language is altered, its substantive content — criminalising vague and broad categories of speech and expression such as ‘subversive activity’, ‘encouragement of separatist feelings’, and acts ‘endangering unity or integrity of India’ — remains the same or is even more expansive,” the petition had said.