Supreme Court stays lifting of ban on SIMI

New Delhi, Aug 6 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed a Delhi High Court's order to lift a ban on Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

A petition challenging the High Court's special tribunal verdict was placed before a bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, which agreed with the Centre that lifting the ban was not in the national interest.

The apex court also issued a notice to SIMI and posted the matter for hearing after three weeks.

Earlier, a specially designated tribunal of the Delhi High Court, headed by Justice Geeta Mittal had said that there was no fresh evidence to justify the extension of the ban on SIMI that was first imposed in 2001.

According to Judge Mittal, the Government had only come out with evidence of the Malegaon blast in 2006 to show the organisation's complicity in unlawful activities, and said that this was not sufficient to issue a notification to ban it.

The ban was imposed on SIMI under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and since then, it has been extended after every two years.

The last notification on the ban, which was challenged in the tribunal, was issued by the Home Ministry on February 7 this year and was supposed to be in force till 2010.

The tribunal during the hearing had asked the Government to bring new facts to justify its decision.

The SIMI had challenged the notification issued by the Government contending that there was no fresh evidence against it and the ban cannot be continued on the basis of previous evidence.

ANI