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Disagreeing with the views and policies of government will not attract the offence of sedition, the Supreme Court observed on Wednesday as it rejected a public interest litigation (PIL) petition seeking action against former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah for his views on abrogation on Article 370 of the Constitution (Rajat Sharma v. Union of India).
A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hemant Gupta also imposed costs of ₹ 50,000 on the petitioner, opining that the petition was a publicity interest litigation filed to garner media attention.
The petitioner was directed to deposit the costs with the Supreme Court Advocates Welfare Fund.
"The expression of a view which is a dissent from a decision taken by the Central Government itself cannot be said to be seditious. There is nothing in the statement which we find so offensive as to give a cause of action for a Court to initiate proceedings. Not only that, the petitioners have nothing to do with the subject matter and this is clearly a case of publicity interest litigation for the petitioners only to get their names in press. We must discourage such endeavours," the Court said.
The petitioners, Rajat Sharma and Dr. Neh Srivastava, had taken exception to Abdullah's comments on the Central government's 2019 decision to scrap Article 370 which conferred special status on the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir.
Sharma is the secretary and trustee of the organisation, Vishwa Guru India Vision of Sardar Patel.
The plea alleged that Abdullah said that he will get Article 370 restored with the help of China.
The plea stated that views expressed by Abdullah were anti-national, "seditious in nature" and that he should be removed from the Parliament.
The Court, however, dismissed the plea while directing the petitioner to deposits costs within 4 weeks.
"The Writ Petition is dismissed with costs of Rs.50,000/- (Rupees Fifty Thousand Only) to be deposited with the Supreme Court Advocates Welfare Fund within four weeks," the order said.
[Read Order]