 bill no 75 of  2016 the  indian penal code (amendment) bill, 2016 byshri bhartruhari mahtab, mpa billfurther to amend the  indian penal code, 1860be  it enacted by parliament in the sixty-seventh year of the republic of india as follows:—45 of 18602 for section 124a of the indian penal code 1860, the following section shall be substituted, namely:—substitution of new section for section 124a sedition5"124a whoever, by words, either spoken or written or by signs, or by visiblerepresentation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the government established by law in india, and thereby generates an inclination to cause harm to public order by violent acts, 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 fine10explanation 1—the expression "disaffection" includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmityexplanation 2—mere casual raising of slogans against the government established by law in india shall not amount to sedition unless there is direct and imminent incitement to violence" statement of objects and reasonsthe provision of sedition did not find place in the indian penal code when it was enacted in 1860 subsequently, for purely political reasons, section 124a was inserted in the code by the british colonial government the section was liberally used to stifle free speech and many nationalist leaders, including bal gangadhar tilak and mahatma gandhi, were tried under this section, so much so that pandit jawaharlal nehru once described this section as "highly objectionable and obnoxious"in such historical backdrop, it was expected that the provisions relating to sedition would not remain in our statute books however, not only was the provision retained in the statute book, its constitutionality was upheld by the supreme court in kedarnath versus state of bihar (1962) since then, the provisions have stood firmly in the statute book and have been used a number of times by successive governmentsthe bill, therefore, seeks to restrict the scope of the definition of sedition to only such cases which bring or attempt to bring into hatred or contempt, or excite or attempt to excite disaffection towards, the government established by law in india, and thereby generates an inclination to cause harm to public order by violent actsthe bill seeks to achieve the above objectnew delhi;bhartruhari mahtabmarch 3, 2016 annexure extract from the indian penal code, 1860 (45 of 1860) 124a seditionwhoever, 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 towards2[  ] the government established by law in 3[india],  4[  ] shall be punished with 5[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 fineexplanation 1—the expression "disaffection" includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmityexplanation 2—comments expressing disapprobation of the measures of the attempting to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection, do not constitute an offence under this sectionexplanation 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  ———— a billfurther to amend the indian penal code, 1860————(shri bhartruhari mahtab, mp)gmgipmrnd—5310ls(s3)—16-04-2016