PSA a bid to criminalise varied orgs: Bharadwaj

Bharadwaj was among the speakers at a webinar organised by All India Inquilabi Youth and Students Alliance (ALIYSA) and National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) along with senior advocate Mihir Desai and activist Ulka Mahajan

MUMBAI: Human rights lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj said on Saturday that it was a great thing that the civil society in Maharashtra had already begun protesting against the Maharashtra Special Public Security Act, passed by the state’s legislative assembly in its recently concluded monsoon session. Bharadwaj said the law that still awaits the Governor’s assent in Maharashtra was completely unconstitutional and is an attempt to criminalise all kinds of organisations.

Sudha Bharadwaj

Bharadwaj was among the speakers at a webinar organised by All India Inquilabi Youth and Students Alliance (ALIYSA) and National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) along with senior advocate Mihir Desai and activist Ulka Mahajan. Mahajan said protests were planned on September 10 and October 2. “This may be the only way…the answer will have to be on the ground,” Bharadwaj said.

Bharadwaj was released on bail by the Bombay High Court in December 2021 after spending three years in jail as one of the accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case. She worked for 30 years as a trade unionist and a human rights defender in Chhattisgarh.

She said a similar law was enforced in Chhattisgarh in 2005 and rampantly misused to criminalise organisations of all kinds. “These are not violent or terrorist activities, but any kind of activity that you cannot bring under any other law. You have then created a grey area to mop them up,” Bharadwaj said.

Advocate Desai called the law passed in July by the Maharashtra legislative assembly “draconian”. He said, “It’s very use will be misuse.” Desai added that civil society needs to rise and protest in courts as well as on the streets.