NEW DELHI: A protest by college students doesn’t shake the foundations of our nation, said the Delhi High Court which also cautioned the police against the mindless use of the UAPA. “We are of the view that the foundations of our nation stand on surer footing than to be likely to be shaken by a protest, however vicious, organised by a tribe of college students or other persons, operating as a coordination committee from the confines of a University situate in the heart of Delhi,” it said granting bail to Asif Iqbal Tanha who was charged under the stringent Act.
Cautioning against the frivolously invocation of the Act, the court added that such an approach would undermine the intent and purpose of Parliament in enacting a law that is meant to address threats to the very existence of the nation.“Wanton use of serious penal provisions would only trivialise them,” it said.
The court asserted that terrorism under UAPA ought to be understood differently from conventional, heinous crimes that fall within the IPC. “In our opinion, the intent and purport of Parliament in enacting the UAPA, and more specifically in amending it in 2004 and 2008 to bring terrorist activity within its scope, was, and could only have had been, to deal with matters of profound impact on the ‘Defence of India’, nothing more and nothing less.”
The HC rejected the police’s stand that the protests were not typical but aggravated and intended to disrupt the life of the community in Delhi. There was absolutely nothing in the charge sheet to charge Tanha under various sections of the UAPA, it noted.