The UAPA 1967: Unlawful Associations

In one line

An Act that lets the Central Government ban an association, subject to confirmation by a Tribunal presided over by a High Court judge.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 was enacted to provide for the more effective prevention of certain unlawful activities of individuals and associations. Chapter II empowers the Central Government to declare an association unlawful by notification under section 3, requires the notification to be referred within thirty days to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal under section 4, and provides that the notification has no effect until the Tribunal confirms it; the Tribunal, constituted under section 5, consists of one person who must be a Judge of a High Court. Membership of a declared association, taking part in its meetings, contributing to it or assisting its operations is punishable under section 10, and unlawful activity itself is punishable under section 13.

Where the Act comes from

The Act belongs with the Constitution (Sixteenth Amendment) Act 1963, which added the sovereignty and integrity of India to the grounds of restriction in articles 19(2) and 19(4). Once the Constitution permitted restrictions on speech and on association in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, a statute imposing them followed. The Act was passed on 30 December 1967.

Its original long title was to provide for the more effective prevention of certain unlawful activities of individuals and associations. The words and for dealing with terrorist activities were inserted later, and the preamble reciting the United Nations Security Council resolutions was added in the amendments of the 2000s. Reading the long title in its present form, with the interpolated words, shows the join.

The definitions in section 2

Unlawful activity, in relation to an individual or association, means any action taken by such individual or association, whether by committing an act or by words spoken or written or by signs or by visible representation or otherwise, which:

(i) is intended, or supports any claim, to bring about, on any ground whatsoever, the cession of a part of the territory of India or its secession from the Union, or which incites any individual or group to bring about such cession or secession; or

(ii) disclaims, questions, disrupts or is intended to disrupt the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India; or

(iii) causes or is intended to cause disaffection against India.

Compare that with TADA's section 4(2). The word questions is there, and so is the coverage of speech, of writing, of signs and of visible representation. TADA's disruptive activity offence was in substance already in this Act; what TADA added was a five year minimum sentence. That is a point worth making in an answer on exceptional legislation, because it shows how much of the criticised law was permanent law all along.