Jharkhand HC Quashes Ban On Popular Front Of India
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New Delhi: The Jharkhand High Court on Monday quashed the State Government’s notification passed under section 16 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1908 declaring the Popular Front of India (PFI) unlawful.
Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay opined that the notification seemed to have been made hastily and "in an imprudent manner" without recognizing that there was no 'congealed materials' to declare the organization as an unlawful association.
The Court noted that the State had issued the notification on the basis of inputs that some PFI members had left for Syria to join ISIS. The court found that the allegations were vague and therefore quashed the notification, observing, “The State has faulted on the decision-making process itself. Sound reasoning and rational basis should have formed the backbone of the impugned notification."
The court further observed that even if the government had constraints in mentioning the reasons for security reasons, it could have apprised the court of the substantive materials, the investigative agency may have collected indicating the involvement of PFI in subversive activities. According to the court, even that was not done. Neither has such material been brought to the notice of the Court nor the counter affidavit highlights such instance which would be supportive of the decision of the State Government for issuing the Notification dated 21.2.2018.
The Court's order came on a petition filed by Abdul Wadud, general secretary of PFI, challenging the notification as well as the proceedings initiated against him and other members of the organization following the notification.
He had submitted that the aim and object of PFI is to “protect national integration, communal harmony, peace, progress and prosperity amongst the people, irrespective of the community to which they belonged, as also to establish social order, freedom and justice for all" and cited documents to further explain the objectives of the organization.
The peritioner also asserted that PFI had raised its voice against the leader of a political dispensation of the State, which resulted in several members of the organization being arrested and assaulted. His petition was in response to the notification of the Home Department on February 21, 2018, declaring the PFI as unlawful under section 16 of the Act.
The court said that the State Government had not provided appropriate reasons for declaring the organization unlawful, and went on to quash the proceedings against the petitioner and other organization members as well, noting that these were primarily instituted on the basis of the notification.