Plea against Govt. nod for world meets quashed

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JULY 12. The Supreme Court today dismissed at the admission stage a writ petition challenging the Centre's office memorandum (OM) issued in September last requiring prior approval/clearance of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for holding an international conference/seminar/workshop on a subject matter, which was political, semi-political, communal or religious in nature or was related to human rights.

The petition was from the People's Union for Civil Liberties.

According to the memorandum, the Home Ministry's prior approval was also required if the conference was proposed to be held in areas covered under the protected/restricted inner line regime or the conference included participants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan or Sri Lanka.

The Bench comprised the Chief Justice, Dr. A.S. Anand, Mr. Justice R. C. Lahoti and Mr. Justice Brijesh Kumar.

Earlier Mr. Rajinder Sachar, senior advocate for the petitioner, contended that the impugned memorandum from the Centre amounted to imposition of unreasonable restrictions on the exercise of fundamental rights of free speech and expression including the right to receive information from foreign participants on a given subject of mutual interest.

The Bench observed that when the security of the country was concerned, the state could impose certain restrictions on the organisation of international conferences and that the impugned office memorandum was procedural in nature.

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