Context:While the Constitution of India permits reasonable restrictions on speech on a variety of stated grounds, many laws that impose such restrictions are accompanied by various issues.
Analyzing the limitations to free speech in India
Criminal defamation: By making defamation a punishable offence, the state imposes a chilling effect on all manners of legitimate speech.
It is for this reason that almost every democratic nation of the world has revoked laws criminalizing defamation.
In Priya Ramani Case, the Delhi court recognized that a woman’s right to dignity superseded any claims over reputation.
Sedition: defined as any act that brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government. (Vestige of colonialism)
It was incorporated by the British government into the Indian Penal Code with the explicit aim of repressing all forms of dissent against the regime.
The offence is still prevalent in India despite the Supreme Court ruling in 1962, which held that only seditious action that had the “tendency to disrupt public order, as prosecutable.
In the Disha Ravi bail case, the Court stated that in a democracy, the right to dissent is fundamental.
Blasphemy laws: The laws permit governments to target acts that so much as offend a person’s belief, dislodging, in the process, the very foundation of free expression.
Section 153A - deals with a speech that seeks to promote enmity between different communities.
Section 295A - criminalizes speech that outrages religious feelings, are also vestiges of colonialism.
Liberty of individual compromised: In Arnab Manoranjan Goswami vs the State of Maharashtra, the Court warned against the use of the criminal law as “a ruse for targeted harassment”.