Plea In SC Challenges The Unfettered Power Of Government To Designate An Individual As A Terrorist[Read Petition]

A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967 as well as the Unlawful Activities Amendment Act, 2019. Furthermore, the Petitioner has contended that as section 35 of the UAPA does not specifically lay down powers of the central government in terms of the applicable stage that a person may be designated as a "terrorist" and thus contravenes not only the principles of natural justice which elucidate, inter alia, the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' but also the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, 1967 which recognizes the presumption of innocence as a universal human right. Inter alia, it contends that specifically, Section 36 of UAPA, suffers from procedural fallacies, such as not providing information or any material basis to the person being categorized as a "terrorist", which according to the petitioner's averments, are contradictory to the cardinal principles of natural justice, nemo judex in causa sua and audi alteram partem. This would have to be done before a Committee constituted by the Central Government, which was closely involved in the issuance of the said notification in the gazette; furthermore, no express provision has been stipulated in the Section to ensure that an opportunity of oral hearing has been secured, thus violation two cardinal principles of natural justice, nemo judex in causa sua and audi alteram partem", states the plea. In September last year, the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi issued notices to petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the UAPA including one by the Association for Protection of Civil Rights which had also averred that the new Section 35 of the UAPA Act, 1967, empowers the central government to categorise any individual as 'terrorist' and add name of such a person in Schedule 4 of the Act.