Incorporating Limits

Context: A committee appointed by the Union Home Ministry, tasked with recommending changes in criminal law, is now seeking to formulate new provisions that will make hate speech a separate offence.

The need for reforms in hate speech laws

• Upholding responsible speech: While speech is free, but it is a freedom that comes with responsibility.
  • Responsible speech is not just that contain abuse, defamation or incitement to violence.
  • It is increasingly seen as an expression that tends not to discriminate against groups based on race, gender, caste, religious belief, sexual orientation, nationality or immigration status.
  • Thus, the world has moved from formal equality among different viewpoints to one that discourages the targeting of any vulnerable section.

Mandate of the committee to review hate speech:

• The panel, constituted by the Home Ministry is examining recommendations made by the Law Commission and the Expert Committee headed by T.K. Viswanathan. It is tasked with
  • Adding Section 153C to Indian Penal Code (IPC): Targeting speech that gravely threatens any person or group with the intention to cause fear or alarm or incite violence towards them, and prescribe a sentence of two years in prison and a fine.
  • Adding Section 505A to IPC: Proposes to punish speech or writing that causes fear or alarm among a group or provokes violence against it, on the grounds of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, place of birth or disability.

Criticisms against the Committee

• Hurried processes: Of forming the committee without adequate and wide consultation.
• Non-inclusiveness: Questioning its ability to gather a wide range of opinion in the midst of pandemic.

Way forward:

• Narrowly defining the sections: Avoiding the pitfall of using vague and overbroad terms that would fall foul of Constitution.
  • For e.g. Section 66A of the Information Technology Act was struck down by the Supreme Court because it failed to define some terms that sought to criminalise offensive and annoying messages.
  • Law shall validate curb on free speech: By clarity on what is sought to be punished as incitement to violence or advocacy of hatred, posing an imminent threat to public order or a targeted group.