Mumbai, Oct 7 (PTI) The Maharashtra Special Public Security Act was introduced as the state has become the “focal point of urban Maoist” activities, the government has said, citing the presence of 64 active frontal organisations, the highest in the country.
The legislation was brought to provide a robust legal framework to prevent and tackle unlawful, subversive, and extremist activities, the state government said in an affidavit filed in the Bombay High Court on Tuesday.
The affidavit was submitted in response to a bunch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Maharashtra Special Public Security Act (MSPSA).
The growing presence of “urban Maoist” networks across the state necessitated a special legal framework to tackle unlawful and subversive activities, it noted.
As per the affidavit, Maharashtra had emerged as a “focal point for urban Maoist activities”.
Relying on data collated by the Ministry of Home Affairs, it claimed that 64 active frontal organisations were operating in the state, the highest number in the country.
“The legislation seeks to strike a balance between fundamental liberties and the state’s duty to protect public order and national integrity,” the affidavit stated.
The petitions were filed by the Congress, the Communist Party of India and some social activists.
A bench of Chief Justice M C Tripathi and Justice Advait Sethna on Tuesday granted the petitioners time to submit their rejoinder to the government’s affidavit.
The government sought that the HC dismiss the petitions, claiming the petitioners have not suffered any direct legal injury.
The MSPSA, passed by the state assembly last July and assented to by President Droupadi Murmu in December, seeks to provide for effective prevention of certain unlawful activities of Left Wing Extremist organisations or similar bodies.
The law specifies four offences for which an individual can be punished: having membership of an unlawful organisation; a non-member raising funds for such an organisation, assisting in its management or committing an unlawful activity.
It empowers the state government to tag any suspected organisation as an “unlawful organisation”.
The petitions claimed that the law confers “wide-ranging, arbitrary and excessive powers” on the executive to ban organisations and attach their properties based on vague and over-broad definitions of unlawful activity and unlawful organisation. PTI SP GK
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