The Madras High Court on Monday reserved orders on a petition filed by a rights organisation challenging an order of The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal rejecting its application for permission to participate in the tribunal proceedings.
The First Bench consisting of Chief Justice M.Y. Eqbal and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam reserved orders after hearing the arguments of the petitioner's counsel, M. Radhakrishnan and Additional Solicitor-General of India M. Ravindran.
In his petition, P. Pugalenthi, coordination secretary, Tamil Nadu People's Rights Forum here, said the Centre issued a notification on May 14, 2010 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act declaring the LTTE as an unlawful association and directing that the notification should, subject to any order that may be made under Section 4 of the Act, have effect on and from the date of publication in the official gazette. Section 4 provided that where any association had been declared unlawful by a notification the Centre should within 30 days from the date of publication refer the notification to the tribunal for adjudicating whether or not there was sufficient cause for declaring the association unlawful.
The LTTE is non-existent in India. As there was the alleged presence of its sympathisers, supporters and agents in India, notice under the Act should not only have been sent to the Tigers in Sri Lanka, but also the sympathisers and supporters in India. Unless the process prescribed under Section 4(2) of the Act is complete, the process of adjudication could not have been commenced by the tribunal. The impugned order was the outcome of the process of adjudication by the tribunal and was contrary to provisions of the Act. The order was violative of Articles 14 and 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution.
