Senate body passes Rabbani’s bill to delete sedition from PPC

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Committee on Law and Justice unanimously passed the private members bill of Senator Raza Rabbani to omit Section 124A, Pakistan Penal Code regarding sedition.

Former Senate chairman Mian Raza Rabbani introduced a Private Member’s Bill on 8th June, 2020 to omit Section 124A, Pakistan Penal Code that relates to sedition.

The committee held its meeting three days back on 29th January, 2021 under the Chairmanship of Senator Muhammad Javed Abbasi. The committee unanimously passed the said Bill, whose report will now be presented in the House and subsequently put on the Orders of the Day for passage of the Bill by the Senate.

Raza Rabbani said this section is a part of the inherited colonial structure of governance that continues in Pakistan. He said this section was for the natives, who had to be kept under control least they incited rebelling against the masters.

He said this law served a brutal occupying force and today is being applied with increasing regularity to crush political dissent and make the citizen submit to unquestionable obedience. Rabbani said today the relationship between the rulers and rules is no longer one or master and subject.

“Respect for the government cannot be regulated. It arises from the stat respect for individual freedom and the ability to govern,” he said.