Journalist saying AI Summit is going wrong can be jailed under UAPA: Petitioner to Delhi HC in challenge to anti-terror law

The Delhi High Court on Thursday started hearing arguments on a batch of petitions challenging several provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). 

A total of four petitions have come to the High Court. Senior Advocate Arvind Datar appeared for one of the petitioners - Foundation for Media Professionals - and set out the case. 

He told a Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia that the organisation has challenged Sections 2(1)(o)(iii), 43D(4), the proviso to 43D(5), as well as Sections 35 and 36. 

While Section 2(1)(o)(iii) says that "unlawful activity" includes causing or intending to cause disaffection against India, Section 43D(4) prohibits grant of anticipatory bail. The proviso to Section 43D(5) says that bail cannot be granted in a UAPA case if, after examination of the case diary, there are reasonable grounds to believe that the accusation against the person is prima facie true. Sections 35 and 36 relate to the designation of a person or an organisation as a terrorist or a terror organisation. 

On Section 2(1)(o)(iii), Datar argued that the provision is extremely broad, vague and arbitrary. He said that he is representing a journalists’ organisation and that under this law, a journalist can now be jailed for writing an article critical of the ongoing AI summit or the government’s mining policy. 

“There are no boundaries, no limit now. A journalist saying the AI-summit is going wrong may be jailed. At the heart of it [the UAPA] is that a journalist is under the constant fear that any kind of criticism will amount to disaffection towards India. I may criticise a mining policy. It may show India in a bad light, but as long as I am not inciting violence or promoting violence, that’s not unlawful, it’s democracy,” he said. 

On the bar on grant of anticipatory bail, he said that there are similar provisions in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), where bail can be granted and, therefore, the UAPA provision is against Article 14 of the Constitution of India. 

Further, he stated that denial of bail based on the case diary is unlawful and the courts, starting from 1897, have held that case diaries cannot be relied upon as evidence of any kind. 

“A case diary can only be used to contradict the police officer,” he said. 

After hearing Datar for some time, the Court said that the matter will continue on March 16.