Kejriwal’s action has not come as a surprise as the grounds were being prepared for long. They were in fact waiting for the right time to execute the plan. The maximum punishment for sedition is life imprisonment and the minimum is three years in jail. If convicted, a person cannot contest elections for six years. He would also not be entitled for a nice job.

In fact speculations were rife in the political circle across the country that Kejriwal would make a U-turn, as he is habituated of, and bargain with the Modi government in lieu for sanctioning sedition against Kanhaiya. It was also in the air that Kejriwal wanted to broker peace with centre at the cost of framing Kanhaiya.

Framing Kanhaiya has become a necessity for the BJP. After receiving drubbing in elections in five states, the BJP was not willing to take any risk in Bihar and Bengal. With Kanhaiya dominating the election scene in Bihar, the BJP could not aspire to win the assembly election in the state. Obviously in the prevailing backdrop it was imperative that he should framed and sent to jail.

The prospect of election strategist Prashant Kishore throwing its weight behind Kanhaiya has simply unnerved the JD(U)-BJP leadership. Depicting Kanhaiya as anti-national while malign his political image it will boost the chances of BJP winning the election. What a shame the BJP leadership stopped such low and conspired to ruin a promising life for simply winning the election.

Kanhaiya is accused of leading a procession in JNU that chanted anti-national slogans on the anniversary of the hanging of Parliament attack mastermind Azfal Guru. Police had filed a charge sheet in January 2019 against him and others. Kumar was arrested in connection with the sedition case on February 12, 2016. He was given bail the following month. The court at that point was not convinced of the charges levelled against him. But BJP continues to pursue this obviously with the intention to malign him. They are aware that their allegation will not stand in the court, but even then they have been doggedly pushing it.

It is worth mentioning that the Delhi government’s home department had received legal opinion not to grant sanction, based on a probe conducted by a district magistrate that found several of the videos of the sloganeering at JNU as doctored. Besides, none of the so-called seditious slogans could be directly attributed to the accused.

Kejriwal himself had in the beginning said that there is no case of sedition against Kanhaiya and videos were doctored. True enough Kejriwal has not simply succumbed to the political pressure instead he has prostrated before Modi and Shah.

After coming to know that Kejriwal has given the sanction, Kanhaiya adopted a tough stance and thanked him for the alacrity which Kejriwal showed in carrying out the dictate of BJP bosses. He also said “need for fast-track courts and quick action in the sedition case is important so that the country can know how the sedition law has been misused in this entire case for political gain and to divert people from basic issues.”

There is no denying the fact that the sedition law had been wrongfully used in India for "political gains and to divert people from issues that affected them". According to the NCRB, 35 cases were registered under Section 124A in 2016, rising to 70 in 2018. What has been quite surprising that the police has miserably failed to substantiate charges against any of the accused persons. This simply reinforces the charge that police and Modi government have been misusing this act to harass the opponents.

Concerns over misuse of sedition law were flagged by the Law Commission in a consultation paper in 2018, which said criticism of the country could not amount to sedition. A number of jurists also hold this view.

Citing the case of a girl student in Bangluru who was slapped a sedition charge the former judge of the Supreme Court B Sudershan Reddy said, “It is a clear abuse of the law of sedition. How would it amount to sedition? It won’t amount to sedition. Not only sedition, no criminal law provision appears in her case”. Yet another jurist, Justice A.P. Shah, former chief justice of Delhi High Court, in an address at the Asian College of Journalism in 2expressed 017, expressed concern at the rising instances of misuse of the sedition law while citing several Supreme Court decisions to back up his contention. He said in 1995, the Supreme Court had in the Balwant Singh versus State of Punjab case acquitted of sedition charges against two persons who had shouted “Khalistan zindabad, Raj Karega Khalsa” hours after Indira Gandhi’s assassination.

The fact of the matter is Modi government has been using sedition law as a weapon to muzzle dissent. The Supreme Court has laid down guidelines to prevent abuse of the law, but they are often ignored. “Criticism of government, army, judiciary cannot be construed as sedition. If we stifle criticism of these institutions, we shall become a police state instead of a democracy,’ observed Supreme Court Justice Deepak Gupta at a workshop.

Justice Gupta said on Saturday that Indian citizens have the right to criticise the government, and such criticism cannot be construed as sedition. Gupta said “Criticism of the executive, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, the armed forces cannot be termed sedition. If we stifle criticism of these institutions, we shall become a police state instead of a democracy.” The judge asked the audience to always question “why”. “Only then the society will develop,” he said.

Kejriwal has acted at the behest of BJP was made clear from the comment of BJP Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari. He said "Keeping current political situation in mind, Chief Minister Kejriwal has finally given sanction to prosecute Kanhaiya Kumar. We welcome the decision. We have been demanding (this)... let the law take its own course".

It is worth mentioning that the Delhi High Court on Dec 4, 2019 had refused to direct the AAP government to grant sanction for prosecution of former JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar in a sedition case. A bench of chief justice DN Patel and justice C Hari Shankar said it cannot pass any direction in this regard and it is for the Delhi government to decide as per existing rules, policy, law, and facts of that case on whether to grant approval for prosecution.

Now Kejriwal using his honest conscience has implicated Kanhaiya in sedition case. It allowed him to frame Kanhaiya irrespective of ignoring the sitting judge of the Supreme Court observation that any attempt to stifle criticism will turn India into "a police state". (IPA Service)