By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: A special tribunal of the Delhi High Court on 5th August lifted the two-year ban on Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). The tribunal headed by Justice Geeta Mittal had on Friday reserved the order on the petition by SIMI challenging the ban imposed by the central government on February 7, 2008.
The Union Home Ministry in a notification on February 7, 2008 had declared SIMI an unlawful association indulging in activities prejudicial to the security of the country. The central government had first banned SIMI on September 27, 2001. The two-year ban was renewed in September 2003 and February 2006.
Listen to TCN interview with Trideep Pais:
SIMI’s lawyer Trideep Pais told TwoCircles.net that all previous bans on SIMI had not strong basis. “This organization has been banned time and again but every time there was no material against it to carry out the ban,” said Pais. “In the preceding two years before the last ban in 2006 in which I represented the organization, there was not a single case which involved the name of SIMI or was an unlawful activity at all. The government cited j random crimes that did not involve SIMI and used it to ban the organization,” said Pais adding that the tribunal order will restore the democratic institution.
The adjudication this time has held that there is no material to ban the organization.
Only based on police charge-sheets and confessions they claim that SIMI has been involved in all these unlawful activities, said Pais.
It is noteworthy that while the government has been arguing for ban in the last eight years, there has not been any conviction in cases related to SIMI. “It shows that it was the desperate move of the government time and again on the basis of the police case that it banned the organization,” said SIMI lawyer Pais.
“Freedom of association and forming of organization is a fundamental right in this country which is subjected to some restrictions. But just because you don’t like someone or suspect them, you cannot ban them,” Pais points out.
What does the order mean for SIMI? “It means that it is no more an unlawful association. And its erstwhile members who have been prosecuted for just being member of the organization cannot be prosecuted anymore,” said Trideep Pais to TwoCircles.net.
Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was formed in Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh) in April 1977. In the last 10 years SIMI has been slapped with several bans and scores of its members put behind bars. In the last 17 cases against SIMI, all accused people have been acquitted. Former SIMI president Shahid Badr Falahi was arrested in three cases and has been acquitted in all. The last time he was acquitted was in July 2006.