SC To Commence Hearing In SIMI Ban Case On Oct 13

The Supreme Court today said it would hear the writ petition filed by the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) against its ban and also some appeals filed by the union of India all tagged together on October 13.

“First we have to go into the validity of the amendments and then we will also scrutinize successive decisions of the tribunals”, a bench headed by chief justice Dipak Misra, who took charge today, told advocate Kamini Jaiswal who represented the SIMI and Attorney General K K Venugopal who appeared for the Centre.

SIMI was started in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, in April 1977. It was banned by the government in 2006.

SIMI argues that the "amendments to the Unlawful Activities [Prevention] Act 1967 were passed in December 2008 without any thoroughgoing debate in Parliament the aftermath of the 26/11 attack. The Bill was not referred to any Parliamentary committee despite calls by several members of Parliament for further scrutiny and consultations".

“We are challenging the amendment to the unlawful activities act as per which the ban on the organisation was extended from the earlier specified period of two years to five years”, said Jaiswal who appears for SIMI