CHENNAI, March 31: Kovai Batcha, president of the banned Al-Umma, has moved the Madras High Court challenging an order of a single judge dismissing his plea to lift the ban on his organisation. Justice K Govindarajan had on March 10 dismissed a writ petition from Batcha challenging the Feb 14 notification issued by the State Government banning Al-Umma as an unlawful outfit, following series of bomb blasts in Coimbatore and other parts of Tamil Nadu.In his present appeal, Batcha submitted that the single judge had failed to note that the original Criminal Law Amendment Act 1908, under which the ban notification was issued, had already been declared as unconstitutional by a full bench of the High Court. This declaration had been upheld by the Supreme Court also. The judge has erred in holding that the notification gave reasons for the ban, but in fact, no specific particulars had been given in the order to enable him to make any meaningful representation.
His counsel A. Sirajjudin argued that someanti-social elements, with the connivance of certain political parties, have committed terrorist acts in Coimbatore. To escape from the mass upsurge and to encash it by way of vote in the Lok Sabha election, they unleashed a canard implicating Al-Umma in the incidents.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
