Right to protest is not a terror act: HC

ON DISSENT

...in its anxiety to suppress dissent, State blurred the line between ‘right to protest’ and ‘terrorist activity’. If such blurring gains traction, democracy will be in peril

ON UAPA

We can discern no specific or particularised allegation that the appellant incited violence, what to talk of committing a terrorist act... as understood in the UAPA

The Delhi high court on Tuesday granted bail to three student activists arrested for allegedly instigating the February 2020 Delhi riots, terming the charges against them “stretched”, “verbiage”, and “hyperbole” and saying that the state may have, by going after the protestors, blurred the line between the “right to protest” and “terrorist activity”.

Delhi Police is likely to challenge the order in the Supreme Court. A bench of justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup J Bhambhani held that the foundations of this nation stood on surer footing than those likely to be shaken by a protest, however vicious, organised by college students who operated from the confines of a university.

In three separate but similarly worded orders, the court granted bail to Jawarharlal Nehru University (JNU) students Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, and Jamia Millia Islamia student Asif Iqbal Tanha, noting that the allegations against them do not show that they committed any crime under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

“We are constrained to say, that it appears, that in its anxiety to suppress dissent and in the morbid fear that matters may get out of hand, the State has blurred the line between the constitutionally guaranteed ‘right to protest’ and ‘terrorist activity’. If such blurring gains traction, democracy will be in peril,” said the bench in the judgment granting bail to Kalita.

The bench commented that “the right to protest is not outlawed and cannot be termed as a ‘terrorist act’ within the meaning of the UAPA”.

The three are set to walk out of the prison after more than a year’s incarceration in connection to the riots case.

Both Narwal and Kalita, members of NGO Pinjra Tod, were booked in three cases and were arrested May 29 last year for allegedly hatching a conspiracy along with the other co-accused to orchestrate the riots.

Communal riots broke out in north east Delhi in February, 2020, leaving 53 people dead and over 400 injured. Over 750 FIRs were filed in connection to the riots and several people were arrested. In September 2020, the police filed its first charge sheet running into 17,500 pages charging 15 accused of allegedly hatching a conspiracy to orchestrate riots. The charge sheet was filed under various sections including