A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice A.K. Mathur suspended the tribunal\u2019s order on an urgent plea by the central government, which said \u201cirreparable damage will be caused\u201d to India\u2019s fight against terrorism if SIMI was allowed a free run with its activists indulging in terrorist activities.
\u201cSIMI is against Indian nationalism and works to replace it with an international Islamic order,\u201d said the government in its plea. \u201cSIMI is known to have launched a countrywide campaign since November 1996 to mobilise support for Muslims to establish a Caliphate for Muslim community,\u201d it said.
The New Delhi-based Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal, headed by Justice Geeta Mittal of the Delhi High Court, had quashed the government notification of Feb 7 which had declared SIMI an outlawed organisation for the fourth time and banned its activities.
Justice Mittal had said the government did not have sufficient evidence against SIMI activists to justify the ban.
Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanian, appearing for the government, contended before the chief justice\u2019s bench Wednesday that the tribunal lifted the ban without properly evaluating the government\u2019s evidence.
He said the tribunal ignored the depositions made by 77 senior government officials, including those from the home minister, the Intelligence Bureau and intelligence chiefs of various states.
The law officer told the bench that the government had shown the tribunal even the top-secret cabinet note, put forward by the home ministry detailing various evidence and intelligence inputs about SIMI\u2019s illegal activities, besides senior ministry officials\u2019 assessments and reasons for the ban on the SIMI.
It was on the basis of this note that the government had decided to extend the ban on SIMI for the fourth time in February. Yet the tribunal ignored even the cabinet note while scrapping the ban on SIMI, he said.
It quashed the ban even while saying \u201cit does not express its opinion on the merit of various evidence\u201d, which the tribunal must have done, he added.
Subramanian also pointed out that the tribunal did not give due importance to the fact that various tribunals headed by various other Delhi High Court judges had been consistently endorsing the bans since 2001, when SIMI was first declared an illegal outfit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"