Wednesday 13th May, 2026
Srinagar, Mar 26: (UNI) Jammu and Kashmir High Court (HC) has issued a notice to Union Home Ministry (UHM) on a petition challenging the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) in the state.
The court has asked the UHM to reply by April 22 to the petition filed by one Mehraj Azeem, a resident of Srinagar through his counsel Syed Musaib who has describing the ban against the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 that was invoked to ban JeI.
The High Court on Monday asked the Union home ministry to reply by April 22 to a petition challenging the banning of Jamaat-e-Islami in J&K.
A Single Bench of Justice Tashi Rabstan issued the notice to the ministry through Home secretary after hearing the counsel of petitioner on Monday.
Assistant Solicitor General of India Tahir Shamsi accepted the notice on behalf of the Union ministry.
A 61-year-old Azeem in his petition pleads that on February 28, 2019, the Government of India declared JeI as an unlawful organisation with immediate effect without specifying the grounds, which is mandatory under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 that was invoked to ban it.
He further said the notification issued by the Home ministry went against the Act, which clearly states that the notification should specify the grounds on which it is issued and such other particulars as the Central government might consider necessary.
The petition citing a Supreme Court judgment titled Vakil Singh vs State of J&K, 1974 said “Grounds are not opinions or subsidiary evidence, they should comprise of facts which substantiate the notification, it should include particulars with regard to the dates of the offences, details of the FIRs registered by the police or the details of the pending prosecution. The petitioner said that according to the judgment the “grounds must contain the pith and substance of primary facts but not subsidiary facts or evidential details”.
The petitioner pleads that merely relying on the subjective satisfaction of the respondents overrides the basic freedom as guaranteed by the apex court in V.G Row case, which had reiterated that such sanctions cannot receive judicial approval as a general pattern.
Rules also state that the organisation, which has been declared unlawful, must be served a copy of the notification , he said.
The petition further said that “Presumably even if certain material is available with the respondents, the same would constitute incriminating material against a single individual of the organisation and not against the organisation as a whole, and the same has to be dealt in accordance with the law of land and could not be used to muzzle and gag an entire political organisation having decades of existence”.
The petitioner also submits that it is beyond the competence of the respondents to seek creation of a tribunal, or even extending the jurisdiction of the existing tribunal in J&K, as the same is covered by the Act governing administration of justice. It adds that the Union government lacks executive competence to enact such provision for Jammu and Kashmir.
“Therefore, creation of a tribunal in order to ensure the safeguards of the Act cannot be ensured because of the incompetence of the respondents (Home ministry) to ensure formation of the tribunal,” he said.
The petitioner said that Jamaat activists were detained before the ban was announced so that confessional statements extracted from them could be later used before the tribunal.
It may be recalled that JeI was banned after Union Home minister Rajnath Singh directed Governor administration to go tough against separatists in the J&K following fidayeen attack on CRPF convoy on February 14 in which 44 personnel were martyred at Awantipora in south Kashmir on Srinagar-Jammu highway.
Over 300 JeI leaders and other workers besides separatists were arrested and majority of them were booked under Public Safety Act (PSA) and lodged in jail in Jammu region.
A number of JeI offices were also sealed in the valley.