New Delhi: Members of banned organisations cannot be treated as criminals by police till they indulge in or incite violence, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday. “Mere membership of a banned organisation 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,” a bench comprising Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra said.
The order can have a bearing on the plans of outlawed outfits which include terror and insurgent groups. The list of 32 banned organisations on the website of ministry of home affairs includes al-Qaida,Lashkar-e-Taiba,Jaishe-Mohammad, Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), CPI(ML) and allied formations, militant groups active in north-eastern states, Khalistan Commando Force, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, International Sikh Youth Federation, Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen and Al Badr and others.
Exactly a month ago, the same bench had upheld bail to a doctor arrested for treating one of the accused in a Kerala professor’s hand chopping case. The January 3 judgment had said, “Mere membership of a banned organisation will not incriminate a person unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence or does an act intended to create disorder or disturbance of public peace by resort to violence”.
The SC’s Friday ruling is part of a judgment acquitting Arup Bhuyan, who was convicted by a Guwahati court under the now lapsed anti-terror law Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act.
Bhuyan was a suspected member of outlawed secessionist outfit United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) which figures at the top of home ministry’s list of banned organisations. The trial court had convicted him based on his confession to police.
Bhuyan had appealed in SC. Allowing his petition, the SC said his conviction was based on “a very weak kind of evidence” and could not be sustained in the absence of corroborative material.
BANNED IN INDIA
A TOTAL OF 32 ORGANISATIONS, INCLUDING
al-Qaida, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, SIMI, JKLF, CPI (ML) and allied formations
COURT’S QUOTES
Mere membership... will not incriminate a person unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence or does an act intended to create disorder or disturbance of public peace by resort to violence
Widespread and rampant practice of the police in India is to use third degree methods for extracting confessions... Hence, the courts have to be cautious in accepting confessions made to the police by the alleged accused
Torture is such a terrible thing that when a person is under torture, he will confess to almost any crime. Even Joan of Arc confessed to be a witch under torture
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