INTRODUCTION(slide 1)

What is UAPA?

 UAPA is anti-terrorist law aimed at effective prevention of unlawful

activities associations in India.
 Its main objective is to make powers available for dealing with activities
directed against integrity and sovereignty of India.
 It bans certain terrorist associations, punishes membership and association
with such organizations and punishes terrorist activities.
 The law been legislated to impose reasonable restrictions in interests of
sovereignty and integrity of India on exercise of freedom of speech and
expression, to assemble peaceably without arms and to form associations.
 Passed in 1967, the law aims at effective prevention of unlawful activities
associations in India.
WHY IN NEWS(slide 2)

 A total of 3,005 cases were registered in the country under anti-terror law
Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in 2016, 2017 and 2018, and 3,974
people were arrested under the Act
 According to statistics published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB),
922 cases were reported under UAPA in 2016, which was 5% than what was
recorded in 2014, with 976 cases.
 Delhi Police have booked students from Delhi University and Jamia Millia
Islamia under UAPA act in connection with anti-CAA protest.
 There are condemnations coming from several human rights activists,
communist thinkers and poets calling it vague definition of terrorism to
encompass a wide range of non-violent political activity including political
protest.

Salient Features of the UAPA Act (SLIDE 3)

1-According to the Act, the union government may proclaim or designate an

organisation as a terrorist organisation if it:

(i) commits or participates in acts of terrorism,

(ii) prepares for terrorism,
(iii) promotes terrorism, or
(iv) is otherwise involved in terrorism. 

2- Any Indian or foreign national charged under UAPA is liable for punishment
under this Act, irrespective of the location of crime/offense committed

3- It has death penalty and life imprisonment as highest punishments.

4- Under UAPA, both Indian and foreign nationals can be charged. It

will be applicable to the offenders in the same manner, even if crime is
committed on a foreign land, outside India.

5- Under the UAPA, the investigating agency can file a charge sheet in

maximum 180 days after the arrests and the duration can be extended
further after intimating the court.

Amendments and change(slide 4)

 The 2004 amendment, added “terrorist act” to the list of offences

to ban organisations for terrorist activities, under which 34 outfits
were banned. Till 2004, “unlawful” activities referred to actions related
to secession and cession of territory.
 In August, Parliament cleared the Unlawful Activities (Prevention)
Amendment Bill, 2019 to designate individuals as terrorists on
certain grounds provided in the Act-

1-The Act empowers the Director General of National

Investigation Agency (NIA) to grant approval of seizure or
attachment of property when the case is investigated by the
said agency.

2-The Act empowers the officers of the NIA, of the rank

of Inspector or above, to investigate cases of terrorism in
addition to those conducted by the DSP or ACP or above rank
officer in the state.
 Criticism(slide 5)

 The Act assigns absolute power to the central government, by way of which
if the Centre deems an activity as unlawful then it may, by way of an Official
Gazette, declare it so. 
 It deprives the accused of the right to bail and this made them to live long
under detention.
 The NCRB Statistics indicate that 67 % of the cases under the act end up
either in acquittal or discharge of the persons accused.
 An individual cannot be called a ‘terrorist’ prior to conviction in a court of
law, It subverts the principle of “innocent until proven guilty. A wrongful
designation will cause irreparable damage to a person’s reputation, career
and livelihood. 
 The act allows police to remand for over 30 days as opposed to the 14 days
under the IPC.

Supreme court directive(slide 6)

 Supreme court set the scope and ambit to Article 19 in the context of
sections 123 and 124 of the IPC, in the matter of Kedar Nath vs.
State of Bihar (1962).
 The Supreme Court clarified that the freedom of speech has three
components: Discussion, advocacy and incitement.
 Hence recent convictions of ‘reading socialist or communist literature
must be inciting violence’, without evidence, is in fact an extra-legal
act of violence by the state upon the citizen. 
 This case provided the scope within which a citizen is legally
permitted to voice their protest against a government or organise
opposition to it even for a constitutional purpose

Conclusion
 The Constitution of a democratic and decolonised country could not
have read any differently because the basis of true freedom is
socialism, as propounded in Article 39
 Criminalising the mere espousing of socialist or communist ideology
under the UAPA is patently unconstitutional as the objective is
neither illegal nor unconstitutional. 
 It poses a greater threat to the sovereignty and integrity of India
than the people being arrested under this Act.