SRINAGAR: The High Court of Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh has quashed the preventive detention of a 19-year-old from Anantnag under the Public Safety Act (PSA), holding that the order was based on “hollow” and unsubstantiated grounds and violated the constitutional guarantee of personal liberty.
In a detailed judgment, Justice Rahul Bharti set aside the detention order issued against Sehran Bashir Nadaf, terming the action of the authorities as legally untenable and lacking substantive material.
The court observed that the detention order, passed by the District Magistrate, Anantnag on May 14, 2025, was primarily founded on a police dossier that failed to demonstrate any credible or recent activity justifying preventive detention under the J&K Public Safety Act, 1978.
The court noted that the petitioner’s alleged involvement stemmed from a single FIR registered in 2023 in connection with a militant attack in Anantnag. At the time, the accused was a minor and was subsequently granted bail by the Juvenile Justice Board on February 4, 2025.
Crucially, the High Court held that after his release, there was no substantive material indicating that the youth had engaged in activities prejudicial to the security of the State during the three-month period before the detention order was issued.
“The dossier is devoid of any concrete facts for this crucial period,” the court observed, adding that preventive detention cannot be justified on vague or speculative grounds.
A key finding of the court was that the grounds of detention were merely a reproduction of the police dossier, without independent application of mind by the detaining authority.
“The dossier and grounds of detention are ‘much of a muchness’,” the court noted, indicating procedural infirmity and lack of due diligence.
Emphasising constitutional safeguards, the court underscored that Article 21 guarantees personal liberty and cannot be compromised on “mirage-like suspicion.”
The judgment strongly cautioned against casual use of preventive detention laws, particularly in the case of young individuals.
“Personal liberty is not meant to be a matter of skating on thin ice… more particularly when it concerns a young person seeking to build his life,” the court observed.
Holding the detention to be illegal, the court quashed both the detention order and its subsequent approval by the government. It directed authorities to release the petitioner forthwith from custody.
The ruling also implicitly questioned the manner in which preventive detention powers were invoked, stressing that ordinary criminal law mechanisms were already in motion in the underlying FIR.
The detention had been approved by the government and upheld by the Advisory Board for a period of six months. The petitioner had also submitted representations challenging his detention, which were rejected before he approached the High Court through a habeas corpus petition.
With this judgment, the High Court reaffirmed the principle that preventive detention must be based on clear, proximate and compelling grounds, and cannot be used as a substitute for ordinary criminal proceedings. -(KL)
