NEW DELHI, July 25 (TIWN): "The time has come that section 124A (of the IPC; on sedition) be held as unconstitutional", said Justice Deepak Gupta on Saturday.

The former Supreme Court judge was speaking at a webinar by CJAR- "Discussion On DEMOCRACY, DISSENT AND DRACONIAN LAW- Should UAPA & Sedition Have A Place In Our Statute Books?" In the light of CJI N. V. Ramana's oral observations asking the Centre if it Is It Still Necessary To Continue Sedition Law, Which Was Used By British To Suppress the Freedom Movement, Justice Gupta expressed the hope that when the matter challenging the constitutionality of the provision is finally heard by the Court, it will be struck down.

"The right to question the government is the main essence of democracy – I may not agree with you but we can politely agree to disagree with each other. Sedition is the anathema in a democracy where every citizen has the right to question the government. It was introduced by a colonial power and the intention was that no native should raise his voice against the British Raj- they had said that anything which brings about hatred or contempt or incites disaffection or enmity against the State would be sedition. Mahatma Gandhi had said affection cannot be manufactured by law, that if I have no affection for the system or any person, I should have the right to express this, so long as it does not incite violence. But unfortunately, till a few years before the independence, the view taken was that anything that you say is sedition if it is disaffection. The judgement holding that it will be sedition only if there is violence was overturned by the Privy Council", discussed the judge.