Lahore High Court Strikes Down Country's Sedition Law [Section 124A Of Pakistan Penal Code]

The Lahore High Court today invalidated Section 124A of the Pakistan Penal Code [Sedition law] calling it inconsistent with the Country's Consitution, reported Pakistan Daily Dawn

Justice Shahid Karim of the High Court invalidated Sedition Law while dealing with a batch of petitions seeking to annul Section 124A of the PPC on the ground that the law was being by the Governments in powers against their rivals.

Justice Karim is the same judge who convicted Pakistan's former dictator General Pervez Musharraf in 2019 and sentenced him to death in absentia in the high treason case for subverting the Constitution in 2007.

The petitions challenging Pakistan's sedition law argued that the Country's Constitution gives every citizen the right to freedom of expression, however, the Sedition Law, a provision of colonial times, punishes speeches against the governments with up to imprisonment for life.

One of the petitions, filed by a citizen urged the court to declare Section 124-A of the PPC as “ultra-vires in terms of Article 8 of the Constitution being inconsistent with and in derogation of fundamental rights provided under Article 9, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 19, 19A of the Constitution”.

Section 124-A of the PPC reads thus:

Sedition: Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the Federal or Provincial Government established by law shall be punished with imprisonment for life to which fine may be added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added, or with fine.

Explanation 1: The expression disaffection includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmity.

Explanation 2: Comments expressing disapprobation of the measures of the Government with a view to obtain their alteration by lawful means, without exciting or attempting to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection, do not constitute an offence under this section.

Explanation 3: Comments expressing disapprobation of the administrative or other action of the Government without exciting or attempting to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection, do not constitute an offence under this section.

It may be noted that the abovementioned provision is identical to Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, which was put in abeyance by the Supreme Court last year (till the Union Government reconsiders the provision).

Last year, the Islamabad High Court dismissed a similar petition filed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, a political party of Pakistan, as being “non-maintainable”.