{"id":34083,"date":"2023-03-25T02:00:59","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T20:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=34083"},"modified":"2025-04-20T08:46:43","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T03:16:43","slug":"unlawful-activities-prevention-act-mere-membership-of-a-banned-outfit-is-a-crime-under-uapa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/unlawful-activities-prevention-act-mere-membership-of-a-banned-outfit-is-a-crime-under-uapa\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlawful Activities Prevention Act: Mere membership of a banned outfit is a crime under UAPA"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA)?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary Regarding the Recent SC Judgement<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The SC clarified that a person who \u201cis or continues to be\u201d even a \u201c<strong>mere member<\/strong>\u201d of a banned organisation is liable to be found criminally liable under the draconian UAPA.<\/li>\n<li>With this judgement, the SC has <strong>set aside a series of its own judgments<\/strong> which had concluded that \u201cmere membership\u201d unlike \u201cactive membership\u201d did not make a person a criminal or a terrorist.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA)?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is <strong>an Indian law<\/strong> (also known as the Anti-terror law) enacted in <strong>1967 <\/strong>and applies to citizens of India who are abroad, persons in service of the Indian government, and persons on ships and aircraft registered in India.<\/li>\n<li>It lays down the<strong> definitions and rules for designating an organisation<\/strong> as an &#8220;unlawful association&#8221; if it is engaged in <strong>certain types of activities directed against the integrity and sovereignty of India.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Under the Act, the central government may designate an organisation as a terrorist organisation if it:\n<ul>\n<li>commits or participates in acts of terrorism;<\/li>\n<li>prepares for terrorism;<\/li>\n<li>promotes terrorism;<\/li>\n<li>is otherwise involved in terrorism;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>The most recent amendment of the law<\/strong>, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2019 has made it possible for the Union Government <strong>to designate individuals as terrorists without following any formal judicial process<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media\">\n<div data-oembed-url=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MvDxOGraLmc\">\n<div><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MvDxOGraLmc\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary Regarding the Recent SC Judgement:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi-test.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/content\/ckeditor\/2023\/03\/27\/image-20230327031200-1.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Image Caption: SC verdict on UAPA<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The judgement was based on an intra-court reference made in 2014.<\/li>\n<li>According to the apex court, an organisation is declared unlawful and banned <strong>only after the Centre is satisfied<\/strong> that it is indulging in unlawful activities against the sovereignty and integrity of India.<\/li>\n<li>The declaration of an organisation or association as unlawful is <strong>publicly notified by the Centre<\/strong> and this naturally leads to the conclusion that every member of the organisation would know about the ban.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>But a person choosing to continue<\/strong> (a conscious decision) as a member despite knowing about the ban shall be punishable with an imprisonment of up to 2 years and fine (under <strong>Section 10(a)(i) <\/strong>of the UAPA).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Such a person cannot later claim <\/strong>that the law has a chilling effect on his <strong>fundamental right of association<\/strong> [Article 19 (1)(c)].<\/li>\n<li><strong>Under Article 19(4)<\/strong>, the State may by law impose reasonable restrictions on this [Article 19 (1)(c)] right in the interest of public order or morality or the sovereignty and integrity of India.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The court clarified that<strong> persons who had left the organisation<\/strong> and were not members at the time it was declared unlawful, cannot be held criminally liable under Section 10(a)(i) of the UAPA.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is the power of UAPA?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>It also provides wide-ranging powers to the Central Government to designate organisations as terrorist organisations and also prescribes the penalties for taking part in the activities of such organisations.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is the success rate of UAPA?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The conviction rate in cases registered under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act by the Centre is more than 94%.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/sc-clarifies-mere-membership-of-banned-organisation-will-make-person-criminally-liable-under-uapa\/article66656190.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>SC changes stand; now mere membership of a banned outfit is a crime under UAPA<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UAPA is an Indian law also known as the Anti-terror law enacted in 1967.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34084,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}