Vinod Dua v Union of India (2021) — Kedar Nath applied to a journalist, and the FIR quashed

Kedar Nath (1962) laid down the test; Vinod Dua shows the test being used to stop a prosecution at the threshold, sixty years later, against a journalist. Read together they give you the two halves of every s. 152 answer: the rule, and a modern illustration of criticism that the rule protects. It is also the case that tells you what the Court will NOT do — build a special pre-FIR screen for the press.

Vinod Dua, a journalist, ran a programme called The Vinod Dua Show on YouTube. On the strength of a complaint about an episode broadcast during the March 2020 lockdown, FIR No. 0053 dated 6 May 2020 was registered at Police Station Kumarsain, District Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, alleging offences including IPC ss. 124A and 505. The complaint said, among other things, that he had "made unfounded and bizarre allegations" — that the Prime Minister "has used deaths and terror attacks to garner votes" — and had spread misinformation about the Government's preparedness. Dua moved the Supreme Court by Writ Petition (Criminal) No. 154 of 2020 to quash the FIR, and also asked the Court to direct that no FIR be registered against a media person of at least ten years' standing unless cleared by a committee.

Whether the statements in the programme could constitute sedition under IPC s. 124A (or an offence under IPC s. 505) as those sections had been construed in Kedar Nath Singh; and whether the Court should create a screening committee for FIRs against journalists.

Lalit and Saran JJ examined the transcript against Kedar Nath Singh and held that "IPC s. 124A of the IPC would not get attracted at all" (IPC s. 124A). The Court restated the governing principle: "every Journalist will be entitled to protection in terms of Kedar Nath Singh, as every prosecution under [IPC] Sections 124A and 505 of the IPC must be in strict conformity with the scope and ambit of said Sections as explained in, and completely in tune with the law laid down in Kedar Nath Singh". In conclusion the Court quashed FIR No. 0053 dated 6 May 2020, but rejected the prayer for a committee to clear FIRs against media persons of ten years' standing, holding that such a mechanism was outside the statutory framework. The judgment is dated 3 June 2021.

1. A prosecution for sedition (now, an offence under s. 152 BNS) must satisfy the Kedar Nath threshold — a tendency or intention to create public disorder by violence or incitement to violence — before it can proceed; where the statements are criticism of Government action, the section is not attracted at all and the FIR can be quashed.
2. Journalists enjoy no special immunity, but they enjoy the full protection of that threshold: the protection lies in the law's scope, not in a procedural screen.
3. The Court will not legislate a pre-FIR committee; the remedy for an abusive FIR is quashing.

• The IPC sections in the FIR — 124A and 505 — have their BNS counterparts in s. 152 (acts endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India) and s. 353 (statements conducing to public mischief).
• The Explanation to s. 152 now says in terms what Vinod Dua applied: comments expressing disapprobation of the measures or administrative action of the Government, with a view to obtain their alteration by lawful means, without exciting or attempting to excite the activities the section describes, do not constitute an offence.
• Vinod Dua's programme was disapprobation of the Government's measures; nothing in it excited secession, armed rebellion or subversive activity. On the Sanhita's text the answer is the same as the Court's: s. 152 is not attracted.