Filing of sedition cases on regime change is disturbing trend: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday said that filing of sedition cases when regime changes is a "disturbing trend" while expressing displeasure over the trend of filing such cases.A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana said, "state of affairs in the country is sad."

The observation of the Bench came while granting protection from arrest to the suspended Director of Chhattisgarh Police Academy against whom two criminal cases of sedition and amassing of disproportionate assets have been filed by the state government.

1994-batch IPS officer Gurjinder Pal Singh, who had served as the IG of Raipur, Durg and Bilaspur during the earlier BJP rule, was initially booked in the disproportionate assets case following raids at his premises by state's Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and Economic Offences Wing (EOW).

Later, a sedition case was registered against him on the grounds of his alleged involvement in promoting enmity and hatching a conspiracy against the government.

The top court directed the Congress-led Chhattisgarh government not to arrest Singh for four weeks in either of the cases. It also directed Singh to cooperate with the agencies in the investigation.

During the hearing, it observed, "This is a very disturbing trend in the country and the police department is also responsible for this... When a political party is in power, police officials take the side of the particular (ruling) party... Then when another new party comes into power, the government initiates action against the police officials. This needs to be stopped."

Recently, the Chhattisgarh High Court had refused to quash the sedition case against Singh. He challenged the High Court order in the top court.The apex court also issued the notice on two separate pleas of Singh to the state government.

According to the police, the documents recovered during the ACB/EOW raids revealed that Singh was allegedly involved in promoting enmity and hatching a conspiracy against the established government and public representatives and was booked under sedition charges.

He was suspended on July 5, 2021, after the ACB/EOW on June 29, 2021 registered an FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act in connection with the disproportionate assets case.

( With inputs from ANI )