The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that High Courts can proceed with hearing petitions challenging amendments to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), emphasizing that the top court should not become the court of first instance except in rare cases.
A Bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna, along with Justices PV Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan, made it clear that pending petitions before various High Courts challenging the UAPA amendments can now move forward.
“A lot of problems arise. Sometimes issues are left by your side and sometimes by the other side; then we have to refer to a larger Bench, and it becomes an issue. We will have it before the High Court,” CJI Khanna observed during the hearing.
The ruling comes as a batch of petitions, pending before the Supreme Court since 2019, challenge provisions of the UAPA, particularly Sections 35 and 36, as amended by the UAPA Amendment Act, 2019. The amendments empower the government to designate individuals as terrorists.
Among the petitioners are an individual, Sajal Awasthi, and the NGO Association for Protection of Civil Rights, which argues that branding a person a “terrorist” without due process violates fundamental rights under Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution. The NGO contends that such labeling leads to a lifelong stigma, affecting an individual’s rights and freedoms.
