Govt sets up tribunal for adjudicating ban on LTTE

The Centre on Monday set up a tribunal for adjudicating whether or not there is sufficient reason to continue the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a fortnight after it extended for five years the proscription of the terror group that was behind the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

While extending the ban on the LTTE, the home ministry had said the group's continued violent and disruptive activities are prejudicial to the integrity and sovereignty of India and it continues to adopt a strong anti-India posture and also continues to pose a grave threat to the security of Indian nationals.

Such a tribunal is constituted under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) to give an opportunity to the banned entity to present its case but is usually a no-show.

India had banned the LTTE after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991. Since then the ban imposed on the group has been extended after every five years.

"Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 5 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (37 of 1967), the central government hereby constitutes the 'Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal', consisting of Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal, Hon'ble sitting Judge, High Court of Delhi, for the purpose of adjudicating whether or not there is sufficient cause for declaring the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as an unlawful association," a Home Ministry notification said.

The LTTE, a terror outfit based in Sri Lanka but having its supporters, sympathisers and agents in India, came up in 1976.

Even after its military defeat in May, 2009 in Sri Lanka, the LTTE has not abandoned the concept of 'Eelam' and has been clandestinely working towards this cause by undertaking fund raising and propaganda activities, and the remnant LTTE leaders or cadres have also initiated efforts to regroup the scattered activists and resurrect the outfit locally and internationally, the home ministry said.