Delhi HC says state blurred line between protest, terror
In its anxiety to suppress dissent, the state has blurred the line between right to protest and terrorist activity and if such a mindset gains traction, it would be a “sad day for democracy”, the Delhi High Court observed on Tuesday while granting bail to three students from Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia arrested over a year ago for the riots that followed protests against the controversial citizenship law.
Terming as “somewhat vague” the definition of a “terrorist act” under the stringent UAPA law and warning against its use in a “cavalier manner”, the high court set aside the trial court orders rejecting bail to JNU students Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita and Jamia’s Asif Iqbal Tanha, allowing their appeals and admitting them to regular bail. “We are of the view that the foundations of our nation stand on surer footing than to be likely to be shaken by a protest,” the court said.
Based on the assessment of the facts, a bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jairam Bhambhani said: “In our opinion, the court must be careful in employing the definitional words and phrases in Section 15 in the absolute literal sense or use them lightly in a manner that would trivialise the extremely heinous offence of ‘terrorist act’, without understanding how terrorism is different even from conventional, heinous crime. The words ‘terrorist act’, including conspiracy and act preparatory to the commission of a terrorist act, were brought within the purview of UAPA by the amendment of 2004, on the heels of Parliament repealing POTA in 2004 and TADA having already been repealed in
1995,” the court said. On the “right to protest”, the court said the government may prohibit public meetings, demonstrations or protests on streets or highways to avoid nuisance or disturbance of traffic, “but it cannot close all streets or open areas for public meetings, thereby defeating the fundamental right that flows from Article
19(1)(a) 19 (1)(b) of the Constitution”.
Ms Narwal and Ms Kalita, both JNU Ph.D. scholars linked with women’s rights group Pinjra Tod Collective, and Mr Tanha were arrested in May 2020. They were accused of being “masterminds” of the February 2020 violence in northeast Delhi and denied regular bail by the trial court.