The Centre is planning to seek a review of the 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. A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court had recently held 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
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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 the 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,” an official said.
He maintained that freedom of expression is one issue but joining an organisation which indulge in violence is a complete different matter.