Srinagar- Observing that preventive detention is not a matter of demand and supply working model between police and a District Magistrate concerned, the High Court of J&K and Ladakh has quashed detention order under Public Safety Act against a resident of Pulwama whose eight months’ old daughter died on 10 February this year.
While quashing the detention order passed by district Magistrate Pulwama on 27-September 2022 against Manzoor Ahmad Bhat, a bench of Justice Rahul Bharti observed that the PSA order has been affected by “speculation and assumptions.”
“It is one thing for a law and enforcement agency to present a case against a prospective detainee before the District Magistrate concerned for seeking his preventive detention whereas it is another thing for the District Magistrate concerned to serve the preventive detention order as asked for by the law and enforcement agencies,” the court said in the order passed on February 16, adding, “Preventive detention jurisdiction which adversely deals with personal liberty of a subject, which is a fundamental right guaranteed under article 21 of the Constitution of India, is not a matter of demand and supply working model inter se the Law and Enforcement Agencies and a District Magistrate concerned or for that matter the State/UT Government.”
It is the factual inputs on which a preventive detention case is required to be set up whereupon the subjective satisfaction of the District Magistrate is meant to apply for arriving at an informed opinion that the facts presented warrant exercise of preventive detention jurisdiction under the relevant clause of J&K Public Safety act 1978, the court said.
“The District Magistrate, Pulwama in the name of application of mind matched the SSP Pulwama concerned in entertaining the same tone and tenor of assumption as fed by the SSP Pulwama which is exhibited from the fact that the purported grounds of detention order is a copy-paste of the dossier,” a bench of Justice Rahul Bharti said, adding, “….the preventive detention of the petitioner (Bhat) has been effected on speculation and assumptions and the detenu (Bhat) cannot be allowed to carry forward its life any further at the cost of doing serious wrong to the fundamental right to personal liberty of the petitioner.”
In fact, the court said, during the course of his preventive detention, Bhat suffered a personal tragedy in the death of his eight months’ old daughter who came to expire on 10 February 2024 while he was in the state of preventive custody. “ (He) could not have even the solace of being with his wife in the moment of personal loss and grief because of preventive detention slapped on him by fictionalizing his personal liberty prejudicial to the Security of State.”
Ultimately, the court held the preventive detention of Bhat as “illegal” and, accordingly, quashed the same.
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