Mumbai: Holding that a citizen expressing the view that the Babri Masjid should not have been demolished cannot be branded anti-national, the Bombay High Court has set aside externment orders, which ban a person from a particular district or locality, issued by the Mumbai Police against two functionaries of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).
“According to them, Babri Masjid should not have been demolished, that is their perception! How is it anti-national? That cannot be anti-national! That is their perception! Everybody has got right,” Justice Madhav Jamdar remarked, adding that a citizen is entitled to hold such a view.
One of the three police complaints underlying the externment orders had been linked to a protest over the Babri Masjid issue and the court took particular exception to this being treated as grounds for action.
Hearing the plea by SDPI members Firoz Abdul Khan and Mohammad Rafiq Gulam Rasul Ansari, the judge also observed that the externment orders, based on police complaints arising out of protests, appeared legally unsustainable, particularly since members of other political parties had taken part in the same demonstrations without facing similar action.
“FIR is against all political parties, but these petitioners are singled out. Action can’t be taken selectively. Have you taken action against the political workers of the Congress party, against Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) faction? Just because they belong to one religion action is taken?” the judge said.
The petitioners had challenged externment orders dated December 3, 2025, that barred them from Mumbai for a year. The orders relied on three police complaints filed in 2024 and 2025 over protests linked to the Waqf Bill, air pollution caused by cement godowns in the Chembur-Govandi area and the Babri Masjid issue.
Their counsel, advocate Ibraheem Harbat, argued that none of the alleged acts met the threshold under Section 56 of the Maharashtra Police Act, the provision that allows externment only where there is material showing a likelihood of offences endangering people or property.
The judge noted that the police complaints referred only to sloganeering during the protests and did not point to any damage to people or public property.
Chief Public Prosecutor Shishir Hiray pointed to alleged links between the accused and the banned Popular Front of India (PFI), a claim the petitioners denied. The court, however, noted that this allegation was never part of the formal notice issued to the petitioners explaining why action was being considered against them, and so could not be relied upon at this stage.
Hiray also argued that the petitioners’ conduct during the protests could incite social disharmony and lead to a breach of peace, but the court held that fundamental rights cannot be restricted merely on the basis of speculative apprehension. “As far as fundamental rights are concerned, no reading between the lines. Fundamental rights are there. How can fundamental rights of citizens be affected like this?” the court asked.
The court reiterated that externment is an extraordinary step that curbs a citizen’s fundamental right to free movement and must strictly meet the legal requirements laid down for it, including the settled position that offences still under investigation cannot form the basis for such an order.
It also referred to an earlier ruling in which Justice Jamdar had quashed a similar externment order against another SDPI member, holding that such action could not rest merely on a person’s opposition to government decisions. Applying the same reasoning, the court held that the externment orders against the two petitioners in this case were also legally unsustainable and quashed them.
This post was last modified on July 29, 2026 3:04 pm