New Delhi, Feb. 7: The Centre has decided to challenge a Supreme Court order that members of banned groups cannot be treated as criminals till they indulge in violence, saying police cannot wait for them to carry out terror acts.
Sources said the Centre would soon move a larger bench of the apex court to challenge the order of the two-judge bench which recently had said that mere membership of a banned group will not make a person a criminal unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence or creates public disorder by violence or incitement to violence.
The government’s view is that authorities cannot wait for each individual member to commit any criminal act and it is liable to take action against him since being a member of a banned organisation, he subscribes to the ideology of that group which believes in violence.
“We will ask for a review of the Supreme Court order as it flies out of common logic. Otherwise some members of Al Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Tayyaba would open offices in India saying that they would not indulge in violent acts,” a source said. He added that freedom of expression is one issue but joining an organisation which indulge in violence is a complete different matter.
Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra’s ruling last Friday was part of a judgement acquitting Arup Bhuyan, convicted by a Guwahati court under the now lapsed anti-terror law Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act.
Bhuyan was a suspected member of the outlawed Ulfa that figures at the top of the home ministry’s list of banned organisations.
“We hope that a larger bench of the honourable Supreme Court will review the case,” the source said.
The trial court had convicted Bhuyan based on his confession to police, admissible as evidence under Tada. Bhuyan had appealed in the Supreme Court.
Allowing his petition, the court said his conviction was based on “a very weak kind of evidence” and could not be sustained in the absence of corroborative material.
On the confessions, Justices Katju and Misra expressed strong views.