India's Controversial Sedition Law Explained In 5 Points

The penal code that came into force in 1862 did not have a section on sedition. It was added later in 1870. The section became cognizable - police can make an arrest for a cognizable offence without a warrant - only in 1973 when the Indira Gandhi government was in power.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak was the first person to be convicted under the law over publications in his newspapers. In later years, Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned under the law for writings in Young India. In court, he referred to Section 124A as "prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen".

The 1962 Supreme Court ruling in the Kedar Nath case is considered a landmark verdict on the sedition law. A five-judge bench upheld the constitutional validity of the law but clarified that criticism of the government cannot be labelled sedition unless accompanied by a call for violence.

The Supreme Court last year questioned if the law was "still necessary after 75 years of Independence". The law is a serious threat to the functioning of institutions, it said. The court asked why the government, while taking a number of dated laws off the statute book, "is not looking into this law".

Following the centre's u-turn and request to not hear the matter till the government finishes its reconsideration exercise, the Supreme Court will now decide if it will grant more time or refer the matter to a larger constitutional bench.