Justice Bhat refused to comment specifically on the issue of misuse of sedition since the same is pending before the Supreme Court.
“You are asking me to make a political comment and I’ll refrain from it. I will take a more neutral example- defamation. Do those cases really stick? There are many branches of the law which are deployed. That’s a tendency which we as a society have to address,” he said.
“Your freedoms don’t come free. You have to work for it,” he added.
Justice Bhat was responding to a question by satirist Akash Banerjee at launch of the book ‘How Gourango lost his O’ authored by Senior Advocate Sanjay Ghose.
“In your personal opinion, do you think we’ve made a mockery of the sedition law by implementing it in the most ridiculous circumstances,” Banerjee asked.
“I would not like to make a comment because it is a matter seized of by court and it has political repercussions,” Justice Bhat made it clear.
Below are some of other excerpts from Justice Bhat’s
Source: Barandbench
