Detenue’s PSA order set aside, HC orders immediate release

In a significant Judgement, Justice M.A. Chowdhary of High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh at Jammu has quashed the Preventive Detention Order slapped against a detenue Mohd Jaffer Sheikh S/o Ghulam Mohd Sheikh R/o Nattas, Dool, Kishtwar who had been booked under Section 8 of J&K Public Safety Act, 1978 vide Detention Order No. 6th /DM/K/PSA of 2024 dated 07.11.2024 with a view to prevent him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the ‘security of the State’.

 After hearing Advocates S.S. Ahmed and Rahul Raina appearing for the petitioner whereas Govt. Advocate Eishaan Dadhichi appearing for the Government of J&K, Justice M.A. Chowdhary observed that the detenue is stated to be involved in three FIRs registered at Police Station, Kishtwar and besides these FIRs, four DDRs (Daily Diary Reports) have been recorded against the petitioner at P/S Kishtwar and PP Dool and involvement of the detenue in the aforementioned cases appears to have heavily weighed with the Detaining Authority while passing the impugned Detention Order.

 Advocate S. S. Ahmed with Advocate Rahul Raina vehemently argued that detenue was not informed of the time period within which he can approach the Detaining Authority as well as Government against the Order of Detention by way of filing representation and that the stale cases/FIRs of the year 1997, 2015 and 2019 are made the basis for passing the Detention Order which has no proximate link with the necessity for Detention and the representation filed by the petitioner to the respondents was not considered nor outcome conveyed to the petitioner and the entire material forming the basis of the grounds of detention was neither supplied nor explained to him in the language he understands.

 Justice M.A. Chowdhary observed that so far as DDR entries recorded against the petitioner are concerned, a perusal of the grounds of detention would show that those have not culminated in any criminal cases and merely recording DDRs alleging no specific acts cannot be the ground to detain a person. With regard to the representation of the detenue, the Court observed that in the counter affidavit filed by the District Magistrate, Kishtwar, nothing was whispered that any representation was received from the detenue, yet the record produced by the Authorities would reveal that vide Communication dated 26.11.2024 by the Additional District Magistrate, Kishtwar has forwarded the representation of the petitioner to the Principal Secretary, Home Department with copy to the SSP, Kishtwar for necessary action on the representation. 

Justice M.A. Chowdhary observed that the record is silent with regard to the disposal of the representation and its communication to the petitioner, which thus vitiates the impugned detention order.

While referring several Judgements of the Supreme Court of India, Justice M.A. Chowdhary observed that Personal Liberty is one of the most cherished freedoms, perhaps more important than the other freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution and  it was for this reason that the Founding Fathers enacted the safeguards in Article 22 of the Constitution so as to limit the power of the State to detain a person without trial, which may otherwise pass the test of Article 21, by humanizing the harsh authority over individual liberty.

 With these observations, Justice M.A. Chowdhary allowed the Habeus Corpus Petition and accordingly quashed the impugned Detention Order passed by the District Magistrate, Kishtwar under PSA and directed that the detenue be released from the preventive custody forthwith, if not required in any other case(s).

The post Detenue’s PSA order set aside, HC orders immediate release first appeared on JK Newsline.