Heed SC ruling on misuse of UAPA

SC views will have a bearing on many cases

The grant of bail by the Supreme Court to two youths arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the observations made by the court have reduced the scope of this stringent law. The court has also laid down higher standards for its use. It set aside an order by the Kerala High Court which had struck down a trial court’s order granting bail to two students who had been booked by the National Investigation Agency on terror-related charges. The two from Kerala, Taha Fazal and Allen Shuhaib, one a journalism student and the other a student of law, had been arrested in November 2019 for possessing Maoist literature and pamphlets, banners with slogans and some other writings. The court ruled that even if these pointed to their association with a Maoist organisation, “mere association with and support given to a terrorist organisation is not sufficient to attract Section 38 and Section 39” of the Act. The association and the support have to be “with the intention of furthering the activities of a terrorist organisation,” the court said.

Both Sections 38 and 39 attract imprisonment up to 10 years or fine or both. The court clarified that the “intention of furthering the activities of a terrorist organisation could be inferred from overt acts or acts of active participation in the activities of the organisation’’. Since the charges against the two youths were on the basis of their mere possession of writings and other material, there was no ground to proceed against them under the law. The court observed that the two youths at most betrayed a “fascination” for ideas propagated by the banned Maoist organisation, CPI (Maoist), as they were at a “formative young age”, and that was no ground to act against them under the UAPA. The court also noted that there was “prima facie no material to project active participation with an intention to further the activities or terrorist acts of the terrorist organisation’’ and even elements of “constant association” or “support of the organisation for a long period of time” were not borne out from the NIA chargesheet. So, it found no reason to deny the students their liberty.

The ruling and the observations are important as they will have a bearing on many other cases. The conditions are similar to the conditions that the court has laid down for the operation of the sedition law. The UAPA has been used indiscriminately to arrest and harass people. The court’s views will hopefully have a restraining effect. The ruling will rank among some other recent judgements of the court that have underlined the value of personal liberty and freedom of speech and defended them against attacks by the State.