HC verdict diluted UAPA, don’t use ruling as precedent: Supreme Court

The Delhi high court’s recent judgement, while granting bail to student activists accused of instigating riots, diluted the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Supreme Court has said. It asked courts not to treat the HC verdict as a precedent and issued notices to the Centre and concerned parties to the case, saying SC will need to interpret the ruling.

The high court diluted UAPA in a bail matter, where it was not under challenge, a SC vacation bench of Justice Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian said. The bench, however, did not stay the bail granted to Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal and Asif Tanha but said it was “troubling” that the HC had discussed UAPA in 100 pages while granting bail.

Responding to solicitor general Tushar Mehta's submission that UAPA was “turned upside down” by the high court in granting bail, the SC bench said: “The issue is important and can have pan-India ramifications. We would like to issue notice and hear the other side.”


The high court had said that UAPA provisions made securing bail virtually impossible unless the accused could prove that s/he was not involved in the case and added that the law was enacted to deal with matters related to national defence and nothing else. The HC slammed the government for using UAPA to ‘suppress dissent’ and said that it would not countenance the state using the term ‘terrorist act’ casually in reference to acts of omission and commission defined in other laws.

Urging the Supreme Court to stay the HC order, Mehta expressed fear that the new interpretation of law would be used by a host of accused in jail. Justice Gupta conceded that the interpretation had pan-India ramifications and said that the bench would hear the case on July 19 and decide the issue quickly.

Appearing for the student activists, senior advocate Kapil Sibal said there was no doubt that SC should consider ramifications and interpretation of UAPA so that there is a judgement on the issue from it, but now “we are dealing with bail applications”. The bench responded: “That is what is troubling us. It is surprising that in a bail application, there is 100-page judgement discussing the entire law. There are many questions which arise, as legality of the UAPA was not challenged before the high court. These were bail applications,” the SC bench said.