{"id":227204,"date":"2023-02-18T19:01:19","date_gmt":"2023-02-18T13:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=227204"},"modified":"2023-02-18T19:01:19","modified_gmt":"2023-02-18T13:31:19","slug":"supreme-court-must-use-cases-pending-against-uapa-to-examine-its-scope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/supreme-court-must-use-cases-pending-against-uapa-to-examine-its-scope\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court must use cases pending against UAPA to examine its scope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/b><\/strong>– The post is based on the article \u201cSupreme Court must use cases pending against UAPA to examine its scope\u201d <\/b><\/strong>published in The Indian Express <\/b><\/strong>on 17th February 2023<\/b><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: <\/b><\/strong>GS3- Security<\/p>\n

Relevance:<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0Measures adopted by government to deal with terrorism<\/p>\n

News- In<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0recent times, arbitrary use of India\u2019s omnibus anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967 has drawn attention.<\/p>\n

What are the prominent anti-terror laws that have been used by the Indian government against terror activities?<\/b><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Indian anti-terror laws include the Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act <\/b><\/strong>passed in 1985, and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA)<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0passed in 2002.<\/p>\n

In 2004, started using UAPA<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0against the terror activities. The government used UAPA to declare illegal any organization questioning India\u2019s sovereignty.<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

Since then, the law has undergone three significant revisions<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 2008, 2013 and 2019. Each modification has made it more stringent.<\/p>\n

What are the problems associated with the legal approach adopted by the Indian government against terrorism?<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

The government has prosecuted\u00a0political dissidents<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0under anti-terror laws. But on the global stage, in 2022, India objected to the inclusion of \u201cright-wing extremism\u201d<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0in the definition of terrorism in the UNGA Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy<\/b><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

There appears to be a significant difference between what India considers to be terrorism and what other democracies like the UK, US do. But Indian\u00a0anti-terror measures <\/b><\/strong>were inspired by legislation from these countries and United Nations Security Council resolutions.<\/p>\n

TADA and POTA were known for their lengthy pretrial detention, in-custody torture, false prosecutions, and forced confessions<\/b><\/strong>. Minority community members paid a heavy price.<\/p>\n

What has been the stand of SC on anti-terror legislations?<\/b><\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Supreme Court had evolved many safeguards for application of TADA and POTA.<\/p>\n

In Shaheen Welfare Association v Union of India, 1996<\/b><\/strong>; it categorized TADA detainees into four different brackets to grant bail.<\/p>\n

In Kartar Singh v State of Punjab, 1994<\/b><\/strong>; SC ordered setting up state and central review committees to prevent the misuse of TADA.<\/p>\n

But in the UAPA era, the court has been unable to\u00a0provide adequate safeguards <\/b><\/strong>against arbitrary arrests, malicious prosecutions and long pretrial detentions<\/b><\/strong>. The Court\u2019s ruling in NIA v Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali (2020)<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0has made the grant of bail almost impossible.<\/p>\n

What are issues related to UAPA?<\/b><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Terms like \u201cterrorist act\u201d, \u201cunlawful activity\u201d, \u201cadvocacy\u201d, \u201cconspiracy\u201d, \u201clikely to threaten\u201d, and \u201clikely to strike terror\u201d<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0have been framed vaguely<\/b><\/strong>. These seem to give agencies arbitrary powers.<\/p>\n

There is a lack of standards for prosecution<\/b><\/strong>. Instead, the act allows for a blind reliance on police cases. The terms like \u201cterrorist act\u201d are subjective and difficult to define.<\/p>\n

UAPA has one of the worst records for prosecution success. According to a PUCL report<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0in 2022, less than 3% of arrests made under the UAPA resulted in convictions between 2015 and 2020. Only 1,080 of the 4,690 people detained under the UAPA between 2018 and 2020 received bail.<\/p>\n

What is the way forward for reforming UAPA?<\/b><\/strong><\/h2>\n

The debate on UAPA needs to be taken\u00a0beyond the validity of a few select provisions<\/b><\/strong>. The law\u2019s\u00a0purpose and scope<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0need careful examination. The main question is\u00a0proportionality<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0which is a fundamental principle of our Constitution.<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Court must determine whether the breadth and consequences of UAPA<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0are substantially out of proportion to its declared goals.<\/p>\n

There is a need to have a law that effectively combat terrorism <\/b><\/strong>and still conform to the imperatives of our Constitution.<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0The ability to identify, neutralize, and bring terrorists to justice should be a priority.<\/p>\n

However, the authorities must be subject to stringent, clear controls and impartial oversight.<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source– The post is based on the article \u201cSupreme Court must use cases pending against UAPA to examine its scope\u201d published in The Indian Express on 17th February 2023. Syllabus: GS3- Security Relevance:\u00a0Measures adopted by government to deal with terrorism News- In\u00a0recent times, arbitrary use of India\u2019s omnibus anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act… Continue reading Supreme Court must use cases pending against UAPA to examine its scope<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10309,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230],"tags":[216,10500],"class_list":["post-227204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10309"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}