Allahabad HC red flags ‘rampant misuse’ of Goondas, Gangsters Acts: ‘DMs must use all caution’

The notice was issued based on two cases at Chharra police station in Aligarh.

While allowing the petition, the court quashed the notice issued by Additional District Magistrate (Finance & Revenue).

The court, in its order on August 10, also directed the Uttar Pradesh government to “form uniform guidelines regarding the applicability of this Act”.

It said that the guidelines must be framed by October 31, and circulated among all the district magistrates so that “they may strictly adhere to those guidelines and there shall be uniformity in the application of the provisions of Uttar Pradesh Control of Goondas Act, 1970”.

In its order, the Bench of Justices Rahul Chaturvedi and Mohd. Azhar Husain Idrisi said that the executive authorities “for the extraneous consideration exercising this extraordinary powers at their whims and capricious and are issuing notices on a solitary case or some beat reports”.

“This amounts to make the deterrent enactment blunt. The indiscreet exercise of provisions of the Goonda Act and sending the notices to the persons is not based on executive authorities’ sweet will or choice. Issuing notice on the solitary case is quite irritating and unnecessarily there is piling up of litigation,” said the court.

The court observed that it is the right of every citizen to reside peacefully and profess his business. If the executive authorities are issuing notice under this deterrent law, then they must be “doubly sure about the individual’s past image, his past credentials, his family, social educational background,” the court observed.

The bench said that and after assessing all these factors if the executive authorities come to the conclusion that an individual is a ‘Goonda’ or a potential threat to society at large and should be thrown out from the municipal limits, “then only by well-reasoned order, after applying his own independent judicial mind pass a well-reasoned order for externment of that individual or even issue notice to that individual calling upon him to justify his past conduct.

Mentioning Govardhan’s case, the Bench said that no executive authority can justify that the petitioner is a ‘habitual offender’ or involved in the cases mentioned in Section 2(b) of the Uttar Pradesh Control of Goondas Act, 1970.

The court said that the provisions of the Act must only be used when the accused is a member or leader of a gang, or if the individual is a habitual offender and commits offences mentioned in Section 2(b) of the Act, and cannot use the provisions of the Act when the accused has a solitary case against him and hence he can’t be branded as a “Goonda”.