Chanting anti-national slogans alone constitutes an unlawful activity under the anti-terror law UAPA even if not accompanied by violence or disturbances, the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has ruled.

It has set aside a trial court’s discharge order and restored charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, against two Kashmiris accused of calling for Jammu and Kashmir’s secession from India and inciting people.

The verdict is being seen as lowering the legal threshold against individuals who freely engaged in such activities before the 2019 abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, and is likely to set a precedent with wide implications.

In the order, pronounced last week against Bandipora residents Ameer Hamza Shah and Rayees Ahmad Mir, the division bench of Justice Sanjeev Kumar and Justice Sanjay Parihar set aside an additional session judge’s order discharging them. The high court verdict was pronounced in the absence of the respondents, who “chose not to appear”.

Shah and Mir face prosecution for offences under Section 13 of the UAPA, which carries a maximum jail term of seven years.

The duo are accused of delivering “anti-national speeches” after Friday prayers on March 20, 2015, “with the intention to instigate the general public against sovereignty of India and to call for separation” of Jammu and Kashmir. Such calls were common before 2019.

Shah and Mir were arrested during the investigations and later released on bail.

The trial court dismissed the charges on September 29, 2021, saying that “except (for) raising of anti-national slogans, the respondents did not act in any manner prejudicial to the integrity of the country”.

“In absence of any proof that any law-and-order problem had arisen pursuant to the raising of anti-national slogans by the respondents, there appears to be no material to warrant their involvement in an unlawful activity,” the trial court said, as quoted by the division bench.

The high court said the trial court’s view that Section 13 did not apply to sloganeering unaccompanied by violence was “palpably wrong”.

For, advocating and inciting a struggle for Jammu and Kashmir’s secession from the Union of India is an activity punishable under Section 13(1) of the Act, it said.

“(It is) because what Section 13(1), read with Section 2(1)(o) of the UAPA, relates to is the commission of an unlawful activity, and the allegations raised against the respondents were squarely covered within the definition of ‘unlawful activity’,” the bench said.

It said that according to the chargesheet, the accused had been found “inciting general public that had gathered after Friday prayers” in Bandipora “to take up a struggle in order to effect secession of Jammu & Kashmir from the Union of India”.