New Delhi: The Supreme Court on October 7 issued notices to the Union government and eight states on a petition by Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) challenging Union Home Ministry's order declaring the organisation as unlawful and the subsequent order of a Tribunal upholding the same.

A Bench comprising Justice V N Khare and Justice S B Sinha, issued the notices after hearing counsel for SIMI, senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan, who contended that the Tribunal upheld the Home Ministry's September 27, 2001 order issued under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, without considering the fact that preaching of the holy book 'Quran' could not be said to be unlawful propagation.

The states to which the Court issued notices were Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.

The petitioner, through counsel Sanjeev Sachdeva and Siddharth Luthra, contended that the Tribunal, headed by High Court Judge Justice S K Agarwal, erred in declaring SIMI as an unlawful organisation merely on the basis of cases registered against some of its members.

"The preaching/teaching of the 'Quran' cannot be said to be unlawful propagation. The propagation of one's religious belief cannot be said to be falling within the activities in violation of the Act," SIMI said in its petition.

Upholding the Centre's ban on SIMI, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention), a Tribunal on March 26, 2002 had declared that there was sufficient ground for the action against the organisation.

The Tribunal, headed by Justice S K Agarwal, in its order stated that there was "sufficient cause for confirming the notification issued under sub-section (1) of section 3 of the Act, declaring SIMI to be an unlawful association".

The Centre banned SIMI on September 27, 2001, stating that its activities were detrimental to peace, communal harmony, internal security and maintenance of secular fabric of the Indian society.

SIMI, founded in Aligarh on April 25, 1977, with a primary aim to propagate tenets of Islam, accused the Centre of being opposed to the minority religious organisation saying the present ruling political establishment was highly inimical to it.

PTI