Justice Gautam A Ankhad, a judge at the Bombay High Court, on Monday recused himself from hearing the plea filed by the Congress and the Communist Party of India (CPI), challenging the constitutional validity of the Maharashtra Special Public Security (MSPS) Act. The plea claims that the law would “suppress constitutionally protected peaceful and legitimate dissent”. The Maharashtra government has sought the dismissal of the “frivolous” plea. According to the government, the legislation, passed by the Assembly in July last year and assented to by the President in December, seeks to “provide for effective prevention of certain unlawful activities of Left Wing Extremist organisations or similar organisations.” The law specifies four offences for which an individual can be punished – having membership of an unlawful organisation and, for 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”. What do the pleas say? A bench of Acting Chief Justice Ravindra V Ghuge and Justice Ankhad was hearing two pleas – one by the Congress and the CPI, and another by All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC). Advocate General Milind Sathe for the government termed the pleas "frivolous" and sought their dismissal. Senior advocate Navroz Seervai, representing the AITUC, argued that the law in question was "unconstitutional" and frivolous. Senior advocate Gayatari Singh, representing the Congress and the CPI, said the law conferred “wide-ranging, arbitrary, and excessive powers” on the executive to ban and proscribe organisations “without any judicial scrutiny or oversight," therefore, it required to be quashed and set aside. In their plea, the Congress and the CPI sought the High Court to restrain the state authorities from enforcing and taking coercive action under the law. They also sought a stay on the enforcement of the MSPS Act until the hearing. After Justice Ankhad recused himself from hearing the plea, the bench noted that the other plea filed by AITUC raising an "identical challenge" will also be heard by an alternate bench of the HC.
