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Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 6
Two days after Pakistan-based Dawood Ibrahim, Masood Azhar, Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi were declared as terrorists, the Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Centre on a Public Interest Litigation challenging the validity of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2019, which empowered the government to take such a decision.
Dawood Ibrahim is wanted in the 1992 Mumbai blasts case while Masood Azhar is JeM chief. Hafiz Saeed and Zaki Lakhvi are founder and member of LeT respectively.
A Bench headed by the Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said that it will examine the amended anti-terror law.
Advocate Sajal Awasthi and Association for Protection of Civil Rights have challenged the UAPA Amendment Act on the ground that it was arbitrary and went against Articles 19 (right to freedom) and 21 (right to life and liberty) of the Constitution. The new law violated the basic tenants of the Constitution as the changes empowered agencies to declare a person a terrorist without there being proper guidelines for the purpose.
The petitioners urged the top court to declare the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2019, unconstitutional as it gave arbitrary powers to the State.
"The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2019 is violative of fundamental rights as enshrined under Article 14 (Right to Equality), 19 (Right to Free Speech and Expression) and 21 (Right to Life) of the Constitution of India,” Awasthi submitted.
Passed by the Lok Sabha on July 8, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019, was cleared by the Rajya Sabha on July 24.
The original Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 only empowered the government to designate an organisation as a terrorist organisation if it committed acts of terror or participated in such acts, prepared for terrorism, promoted terrorism, or was otherwise involved in terror acts.
But the amendment to Section 35 of the Act gives additional power to the Centre. Now it can designate individuals too as terrorists if they committed terror acts or participated in such acts, prepared for terrorism, promoted terrorism, or were otherwise involved in such acts.
The amendment to Section 25 of the Act says if the probe is conducted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), instead of the DGP of the state concerned, NIA Director General can accord approval for seizure of such property. Further, the amended ACT also empowers NIA officers of the rank of Inspector or above to probe cases.
Contending that conferring of such discretionary and unfettered powers upon the central government is antithesis to the Article 14 of the Constitution of India, Awasthi submitted that the 2019 amendment “strikes at right to reputation of individuals.
"Right to Reputation is an intrinsic part of fundamental right to life with dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution of India and terming/tagging an individual as ‘terrorist’ even before commencement of trial or any application of judicial mind over it, does not amount to following of 'procedure established by law' and is, thus, violative of right to reputation of such an individual who is being categorized as terrorist and being added in Schedule 4 of the UAPA Act, 1967," he contended.
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