1. WHY IS THERE A NEED TO CHANGE THE EDUCATIONAL POLICY??

2. WHY IS IT SO THAT IT IS COMPULSARY TO LEARN HINDI?? ALSO WHY IS

HINDI A FIRST LANGUAGE RATHER THAN ENGLISH
3. THIS TYPE OF LEARNING IS MAINLY BASED ON THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY?
HOW WILL POOR STUDENTS ABLE TO AFFORD IT?? IS THERE ANY WHY OR
SCHEME SO THAT POOR PEOPLE CAN ALSO USE THE FACILITIES
4. WHY HAS NEP REMOVED BOARD?? HOW IS IT A WASTE?

5.
BACKGROUND GUIDE
LOK SABHA

Agenda
 Discussing the Constitutional
Validity of IPC Section 124A
(Sedition)

Letter from the EB

Welcome to the Intra MUN '22. It's a pleasure for the Executive Board to welcome you
all to the simulation of Lok Sabha.The EB is thrilled to be a part of this engaging
experience and expects quality debate and deliberation on the extremely pertinent agenda
put forth to this committee.
Further we would like to keep this letter short as we hope there is going to be a lot of
deliberation and interaction in the committee sessions.This committee is essentially
designed to test your team work, critical skills,your leadership quality and most
importantly your discipline and diplomacy.
We suggest that every member goes through the guide at least once, and comes to the
committee with a basic understanding of how the system works. However, this study
guide is by no means the end of research,as we would very much appreciate it if the
Parliamentarians are equipped with extensive research.The uniqueness of this committee
is that you will be representing a portfolio with a character, political affiliations and
aspirations,so we hope you do justice to it with the help of relevant research.
Finally, we expect a committee with proper decorum and pertinent debates that provokes
intriguing discourse and hopefully finds solutions to the most pressing issues at hand.Do
behave like how the parliament would be if our politicians were diplomatic!
All the best!

Regards,
Adiyanth Ravichandran - Chairperson
Rishi S Varun - Chairperson
Senthini O - Vice Chairperson

About Lok Sabha

The Lok Sabha (House of the People) is the Lower house of India's bicameral Parliament,
with the Upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by
adult universal suffrage and a first-past-the-post system to represent their respective
constituencies, and they hold their seats for five years or until the body is dissolved by
the President on the advice of the council of ministers.

The members in the Lok Sabha are referred to as Members of Parliament (MP). The
committee is divided into the government and the opposition for the purpose of debate.
The committee is governed by the speaker, who mediates the debate between both sides
and ensures decorum, much like the chairpersons in this committee.

This is considered to be the People’s House as the members are directly voted by the
citizens of our country and matters of public interest are discussed during the sessions.

Major Parties in Lok Sabha

As we all know, in a democracy, there are multiple political parties which represent our
interests through their ideologies. Representatives of these parties are voted into office by
us if we align with their ideologies. Likewise, the Lok Sabha has multiple political parties
belonging to different alliances one should be aware of.

Broadly, there are 2 major alliances in the Lok Sabha, namely, National Democratic
Alliance (NDA) and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). The NDA forms the
government while the UPA forms the opposition of the parliament. The members of these
alliances are:
NDA
1. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - Leader of NDA
2. All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)
3. Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena (BSS)
4. National People’s Party (NPP)
5. Mizo National Front (MNF)
6. National democratic progressive party (NDPP)

UPA
1. Indian National Congress (INC) - Leader of UPA and Opposition
2. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)
3. Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) (SS)
4. Janata Dal (United) (JD(U))
5. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)
6. Indian Union Muslim League (IUML)
7. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)

AGENDA

About Sedition Law

Under Section 124A of IPC, the offense of sedition is committed when any person by
words or otherwise brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or
attempts to excite disaffection towards the government established by law.
Sedition is a cognisable, non-bailable and non-compoundable offenses under the law,
entailing life imprisonment as maximum punishment, with or without a fine.

History of sedition law in India

India’s sedition law has an interesting past. IPC was brought into force in colonial India
in 1860 but had no section concerning sedition. It was introduced in 1870 on the grounds
that it was dropped from the original IPC draft by mistake.

Use of sedition in the British Raj

The penal provision came in handy to muzzle nationalist voices and demands for
freedom. The long list of India’s national heroes who figured as accused in cases of
sedition includes Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and Jawaharlal
Nehru.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak was the first person to be convicted of sedition in colonial India.
The British government brought the charge alleging articles carried in Tilak’s Marathi
newspaper Kesari would encourage people to foil the government’s efforts at curbing the
plague epidemic in India. In 1897, Tilak was punished by the Bombay high court for
sedition under Section 124A and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Tilak was held
guilty by a jury composed of nine members, with the six white jurors voting against
Tilak, and three Indian jurors voting in his favor. Later, Section 124A was given different
interpretations by the Federal Court, which began functioning in 1937, and the Privy
Council that was the highest court of appeal based in London.

The story so far

Sedition law after Independence
After Independence, “sedition” was dropped from the Constitution in 1948 after
discussions of the Constituent Assembly. KM Munshi moved an amendment to remove
the word “sedition” that was included in the draft Constitution as a ground to impose
restrictions on constitutional freedom of speech and expression. The word “sedition” thus
disappeared from the Constitution when it was adopted on November 26, 1949, and
Article 19(1)(a) gave absolute freedom of speech and expression. However, Section
124A continued to stay in the IPC.
In 1951, Jawaharlal Nehru brought in the first amendment of the Constitution to limit the
freedom under Article 19(1)(a) and enacted Article 19(2) to empower the State to put
curbs in the form of “reasonable restrictions” on the right to free speech.
It was the Indira Gandhi government that made Section 124A a cognisable offense for the
first time in India’s history. In the new Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, which came
into force in 1974 and repealed the colonial-era 1898 Code of Criminal Procedure,
sedition was made a cognisable offense authorizing the police to make arrests without a
warrant.

Current situation regarding Article 19(1)A

Imposition of pre-censorship on a newspaper, or prohibiting it from publishing its own
views or those of its correspondents on a burning topic of the day, constitutes an
encroachment on the freedom of speech and expression.
The offense of sedition, in India, is defined under Section 124-A of the Indian Penal
Code as, “whoever by words either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible
representation or otherwise brings into hatred or contempt or excite or attempts to excite
disaffection towards the government established by law in India shall be punished”.

Case Study
In the recent case of Kanhaiya Kumar v. State of Nct of Delhi, students of Jawaharlal
Nehru University organized an event on the Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, who
was hanged in 2013. The event was a protest through poetry, art, and music against the
judicial killing of Afzal Guru. Allegations were made that the students in the protest were
heard shouting anti-Indian slogans. A case therefore filed against several students on
charges of offense under Sections [124-A, 120-B, and 34]. The University‟s Students
Union president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested after allegations of "anti-national"
sloganeering were made against him. Kanhaiya Kumar was released on bail by the Delhi
High Court as the police investigation was still at nascent stage, and Kumar‟s exact role
in the protest was not clear.
Current situation of Freedom of Speech in India

India’s sedition law, section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, is absurdly broad, making it
a criminal offense to “bring, or attempt to bring, into hatred or contempt, or excite
disaffection towards, the Government.” “Disaffection” is defined to include “disloyalty
and all feelings of enmity.” The maximum punishment is life in prison.While the United
Kingdom repealed its own sedition law in 2009, in India its use is on the rise.

Sedition cases have increased by 28% under the Modi government, according to a
database compiled by news website Article-14. Since 2014, Indian authorities have filed
more than 500 sedition cases involving more than 7,000 people. According to Article-14,
149 people have faced sedition charges simply for making remarks about Modi that were
considered critical or derogatory.

While the courts ultimately dismiss most sedition cases, the process itself becomes the
punishment. In one example, three Kashmiri Muslim students spent nearly six months in
jail for allegedly celebrating Pakistan’s win over India in a cricket match in October
2021.

Rampant misuse of sedition led the Supreme Court in May 2022 to effectively halt all use
of the law in an interim ruling. The court said the law was “not in tune with the current
social milieu, and was intended for a time when this country was under the colonial
regime” – and the Modi government agreed. However, the government asked the court
for time to “re-examine and reconsider” the law. It did not, however, offer clarity on what
that meant or the timeline for its decision.

Union law minister Kiren Rijiju has expressed his displeasure at the Supreme Court’s
decision to keep the sedition law in abeyance, saying that despite the Centre’s submission
of intending to bring changes in the law, the top court passed the judicial order.
Important legal information regarding Sedition:

1) Government has No Monopoly on Electronic Media:

The Supreme Court widened the scope and extent of the right to freedom of speech and
expression and held that the government has no monopoly on electronic media and a
citizen has under Art. 19(1)(a) a right to telecast and broadcast to the viewers/listeners
through electronic media television and radio any important event. The government can
impose restrictions on such a right only on grounds specified in clause (2) of Art. 19 and
not on any other ground. A citizen has the fundamental right to use the best means of
imparting and receiving communication and as such have an access to telecasting for the
purpose.

2) Commercial Advertisements:

The court held that commercial speech (advertisement) is a part of the freedom of speech
and expression. The court however made it clear that the government could regulate the
commercial advertisements, which are deceptive, unfair, misleading and untruthful.
Examined from another angle the Court said that the public at large has a right to receive
the "Commercial Speech". Art. 19(1) (a) of the constitution not only guarantees freedom
of speech and expression, it also protects the right of an individual to listen, read, and
receive the said speech.

3) Right to Privacy:

Telephone tapping violates Art. 21 unless it comes within grounds of restriction under
Art. 19(2). Under the guidelines laid down by the Court, the Home Secretary of the center
and state governments can only issue an order for telephone tapping. The order is subject
to review by a higher power review committee and the period for telephone tapping
cannot exceed two months unless approved by the review authority.
 4) Section 69A of the IT Act:

Section 69A of the IT Act empowers the government to restrict access to any content in
the interest of sovereignty and integrity of the country, security of the state, friendly
relations with foreign states or for public order. Although the constitutionality of this law
is debated, it has been declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. Due notice has to be
issued to the intermediary by the Central Government before denying access to harmful
content.

5) Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA)

The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 is an Act to provide for the more
effective prevention of certain unlawful activities of individuals and associations, and for
dealing with terrorist activities, and for matters connected therewith. This is the primary
anti terror law of the country. The ambit of this law extends to acts of Sedition, which
aims at creating disaffection and cause terror in the country.

Suggested topics for discussion:

1) Discussing the sedition law with respect to terrorism

2) Discussing the law in the digital space with respect to internet intermediaries
(Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
3) Ways to tackle the arbitrary use of Sedition law by the government
4) Discussing the impact of Sedition on Article 19 (1) and analysing the restrictions
on the same.
5) Formulating amendments to the present Sedition Law and redefine the
components of a seditious act