New Delhi: The Gujarat high court has quashed the sedition case against journalist Dhaval Patel, editor and owner of Face of Nation. The case was filed after Patel published an article on May 7 this year, saying that the Bharatiya Janata Party was considering replacing chief minister Vijay Rupani because of his handling of coronavirus.Justice R.P. Dholaria quashed the case after Dhaval issued an unconditional apology for the “allegedly offending article”, Indian Express reported.In his article, Dhaval had said that Rupani was likely going to be replaced by Mansukh Mandaviya, a Union minister and Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat. The article also claimed that Mandaviya has been summoned by the BJP party leadership to discuss this change. After Face of Nation‘s report, other local publications in Gujarat had followed up, leading to the Union minister issuing a statement denying these developments.Dhaval was arrested by the police, and granted bail by the high court on May 27.Also read: Emergency? Here Are 9 Cases Where BJP Leaders Didn’t Jump to Arrested Journalists’ DefenceAs The Wire has previously reported, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that sedition is constituted by written or spoken words which “have the effect of bringing contempt or dissatisfaction or the idea of subverting government by violent means”. In Kedar Nath Singh v State of Bihar, the apex court said that if comments, however strongly worded, do not have the tendency to incite violence, cannot be treated as sedition.The court also ruled in Balwant Singh v State of Punjab that raising pro-Khalistan slogans cannot amount to sedition as it evoked no response from the other members of the community.The Twenty First Law Commission, in a working paper, also noted that criticising the government does not amount to sedition and that “people have a right to express dissent and criticise the government”. It said a higher threshold should be set to prosecute people for sedition law. “Sedition as an act of trying to destabilise the government should only be invoked in cases where there is a real threat or actual use of violent means to overthrow the democratically elected government,” the report said.
