Chief Judicial Magistrate Fayaz Ahmad Qureshi granted interim bail after a police report revealed that charges under UAPA were dropped and instead, the offence under section 153-A of the IPC was incorporated.
Several metro stations in Delhi have been defaced with pro-Khalistan slogans, leading to a case being registered by the police. The defacement comes ahead of the G20 Summit, which is set to be hosted in Delhi next month. The case has been registered under sections 153 A, section 505 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Defacement Act. Suspected activists of Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), a separatist group, are believed to be responsible for the defacement.
The Bombay High Court quashed an FIR lodged against a man who had hacked the Facebook page of MLA Ravi Rana and used abusive language against his political opponents.
The casual resort by the police to the sedition clause continues to cause concern
The arrest of K. Raghu Ramakrishna Raju, an MP from Andhra Pradesh, on the grave charge of sedition, is yet another instance of the misuse of the provision relating to exciting “disaffection” against the government. The police in different States have been invoking sedition, an offence defined in Section 124A IPC, against critics of the establishment and prominent dissenters. It is not surprising that Mr. Raju, a vocal detractor of A.P. Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, is sought to be prosecuted. However, his arrest is unwarranted, considering that he is being accused of only speech-based offences relating to his diatribe against his party leader and CM. It has predictably, and not without justification, invited charges of political vendetta. Even if one were to accept at face value the prosecution’s claim that his speeches stoked hatred against communities he had referred to alleged ram