The following exchange was heard in the British Parliament on this day:
MR J. HERBERT ROBERTS (Denbighshire, W.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will state whether the alteration made in Section 4 of the Indian Penal Code by the new Sedition Law will make a Native Indian subject of the Queen triable in India, and after his return to India, for anything supposed to be seditious which he may write in a British journal, or speak on a British platform, during his residence in this country?
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA: The enactment referred to exactly follows the words of the Statute 32 and 33 Vic., cap. 98, sec. 1, which gives the authority to make such a law. The hon. Member is as competent as I am to form an opinion whether the authority extends to such a case as he has supposed. I need only add that I do not conceive it possible that such a case should arise.
The Indian Penal Code (IPC), enacted in 1860, lays down the punishment for sedition in Section 124A, which was introduced in 1870.
In 1898, an amendment to the section made the effort of bringing or attempting to bring hatred orcontempt (besides disaffection) towards the established government punishable.
Section 4 of the IPC was also repealed and substituted by the “extension of Code to extra-territorial offences”.
The provisions of the IPC would from now apply to any offence committed by:
“(1) any Native Indian subject of Her Majesty in any place without and beyond British India;
(2) any other British subject within the territories of any Native Prince or Chief in India;
(3) any servant of the Queen, whether a British subject or not, within the territories of any Native Prince or Chief in India.”
