SIMI ban to stay, rules Supreme Court

The Supreme Court stayed the controversial order of a special tribunal lifting ban on activities of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). A petition challenging the tribunal's verdict was mentioned before the bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, which agreed with the Centre seeking a grant of interim stay. The SC issued a notice to the SIMI and posted the matter for hearing after three weeks. The tribunal headed by Delhi High Court judge, Justice Geeta Mittal, had on Tuesday quashed the February 7 notification issued by the government extending the ban on SIMI under the Unlawful Activities (prevention) Act. The tribunal had held that the Centre has failed to come up with any new evidence to justify the ban on the organisation. In the appeal, the Centre said that the tribunal failed to give due consideration to a Cabinet note which was placed before it in a sealed envelope and also ignored the ‘deposition of 77 witnesses’ including top officials of IB and intelligence agencies from states. It said that a serious error was committed by the tribunal in arriving at a conclusion that the background note prepared by the Ministry of Home Affairs was issued a month after the February 7 notification, extending the ban on SIMI, to supplement the deficiency in it. The tribunal ignored the opinion of the Centre that if the unlawful activities of the SIMI are not curbed and controlled immediately, the organisation will continue its subversive activities and disrupt the secular fabric of the country by polluting the minds of people and creating communal disharmony, the petition said. The government contended that the tribunal order has been passed without making any observation on the merits of the reference and without appreciating the oral and documentary evidence on record. SIMI, which was banned in 2001, has been under the scanner of security and intelligence agencies since then for terror attacks in various parts of the country including the the recent blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad. The petition claimed that ‘the financial position of SIMI is said to be sound’ and is receiving financial assistance from its supporters in the Gulf. "SIMI is against Indian nationalism and works to replace it with the International Islamic Order," the petition said. The ban was first imposed on SIMI in 2001 under the Unlawful Activities (prevention) Act and since then it has been extended after every two years. The February 7 notification issued by the government was the fourth extension of the ban. The government which maintains that the outfit is an unlawful association had placed before the tribunal the evidence of Malegaon blast in Maharashtra in 2006 to show the complicity of the organisation in unlawful activities. However, the tribunal had refused to except it and said it was not sufficient to come out with the notification to ban SIMI which came into existence on April 25, 1977 at the Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh as a front organisation of youth and students having faith in Jamayit-e-Islami-Hind (JEIH). The tribunal during the hearing had asked the government to present new facts to justify its decision to extend the ban. SIMI had contended that there was no fresh evidence against it and the ban cannot be extended on the basis of previous evidence. Initially, the tribunal had conducted the proceedings in an open court but later it decided to hear the matter in-camera in the presence of Home Secretary and senior IB officials.

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