Supreme Court allows withdrawal of 8 petitions against UAPA, approach high court
On Wednesday, student activist Umar Khalid, who has been in jail since his arrest by the Delhi Police on September 13, 2020, withdrew his petition seeking bail
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed eight petitions that challenged various aspects of India’s anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, to be withdrawn to enable the petitioners to approach the respective high courts.
“The counsel for petitioners seek permission to withdraw the petitions and approach the concerned high courts within two weeks. Permission to withdraw is granted. Needless to say, the petitioner will be at liberty to file proceedings as permissible under law before the high court,” a bench of justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, student activist Umar Khalid, who has been in jail since his arrest by the Delhi Police on September 13, 2020, withdrew his petition seeking bail as well as a writ petition challenging the constitutional validity of the provisions of UAPA, including Section 43D that places stringent conditions for bail.
At the time, the bench also asked other lawyers to take instructions from their clients whether they wished to pursue the matter before the top court or go back to the high court first. The suggestion was made after the central government and the Tripura government objected to the maintainability of the petitions.
The petitions withdrawn on Thursday include a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the Foundation of Media Professionals, a writ petition by Biyumma, mother of Zakariya, an under-trial prisoner in the 2008 Bangalore blasts, and petitions filed by people including lawyers and journalists who were booked in connection with the 2021 Tripura violence.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for a group charged under UAPA for their fact-finding report on the violence titled “Humanity Under Attack in Tripura: Muslim Lives Matter”, asked the top court to extend the interim arrest shield granted to them on November 17, 2021. Similar orders were also passed in five other matters linked to the Tripura violence, said advocate Shahrukh Alam who appeared for five students who were questioned by the Tripura police for social media posts related to the violence.
The bench declined to extend the interim orders “but we will orally request the state not to take any action for two weeks”.
Bhushan asked the court to permit the petitioners to appear through video-conferencing, saying there was no violence in the state now but “the moment we go to the high court, they will arrest us”. The bench declined the request. “You can’t allege anything in the abstract. Once we are sending you back to the high court, we cannot micro-manage everything.”
This was the last batch of petitions challenging various provisions of UAPA pending in the top court.
While the Foundation of Media Professionals made a comprehensive challenge to the UAPA, other petitions questioned the validity of some key provisions, including section 43D of UAPA that allows the court to order the release of the accused on bail if it believes that there were reasonable grounds to conclude that the accusation was prima facie false.
On Wednesday, the bench raised two preliminary objections to hear the petitions on whether the challenge to the law should be raised on the behest of those accused under UAPA and whether the accused who have filed petitions should first approach the high court as they have also sought relief in individual cases.
Senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, appearing for one of the petitioners, argued that questions of law can be raised by anybody, not necessarily the accused, citing the example of the 2003 decision upholding the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) passed on a petition filed by Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).
