A day after a special tribunal lifted the ban on the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), the central government moved the Supreme Court today and obtained a stay against the order.
Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium made an urgent mention before Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan in the afternoon. The main petition will be heard three weeks later.| The court also issued a notice to SIMI.
Subramanium, in the mention, said the lifting of the ban would cause irreparable harm to the government’s attempt to nab terrorists at a critical juncture like the present.
The anti-terror special tribunal, headed by the Delhi High Court judge, Justice Geeta Mittal, had yesterday quashed the February 7 government notification extending the ban on SIMI under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Justice Mittal held that the Centre had failed to come up with any new evidence to justify the extension of the ban. The only evidence it produced related to the alleged involvement of SIMI in the Malegaon blast in Maharashtra in 2006.
The ban was imposed in 2001 and since then has been extended every two years. According to the ban notification, the outfit is involved in several clandestine activities. The notification also said that SIMI had links with 20-odd organisations and with riots in Mumbai and other places. SIMI was banned for the third time in 2006, after the second ban ended in 2005. The February notification was to be in force till 2010.
Several SIMI members have been charged in the past under stringent anti-terror laws like the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act and the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act.
The lifting of the ban had embarrassed the government and surprised police and intelligence forces. The details of her judgment, which runs into more than 250 pages and handed over to the Union home ministry, are not available.