Mere slogan shouting is no sedition: Desai

Mumbai: Against the back-drop of the JNU row, noted la-wyer Mihir Desai today said even if JNUSU President Kan-haiya Kumar had shouted slog-ans against the government, he cannot be charged with “se-dition” as per the Supreme Co-urt’s past rulings. “The Kanhaiya episode is a repetition of ‘Gan-dhian blunder’ by (Prime Mini-ster) Modi-ji, Amit Shah and Smriti Irani,” Desai said, speak-ing on ‘Sedition and the Spec-tre of the anti national’ during a two-day conclave on ‘Cele-brating pluralism and freedom’ here. “Gandhiji was also arres-ted under this law by the Briti-sh government who thought they could propagate their ide-as this way. But this was their biggest blunder….Lokmanya Tilak had been arrested under this law in 1897 when he had written against the govern-ment’s handling of plague in Bombay Province,” he said. In the pre-independence era, one could be charged with sedition for spreading ‘disaffection’ ag-ainst the government, but the law had now changed, he said. “The Supreme Court, while pa-ssing the judgement in Kedar-nath case in 1962, had said that this law needs to be seen in a diluted manner. According to the SC, a person can be charg-ed with sedition if spreading disaffection against the government leads to violence and public disorder,” he said.