Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar association on Thursday decided to file a special leave petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court of India to challenge the detention of its incarcerated President Mian Abdul Qayoom and also the judgment passed by the High Court in his case.
The decision to move an SLP before the Supreme Court challenging the detention of Qayoom under PSA and the judgments of single and double bench of J&K High Court was taken during a meeting of Bar’s Executive Committee today, a spokesperson said. The meeting attended by several senior advocates discussed the fallout of judgment passed by LPA bench comprising Justice Vinod Chatterji Koul and Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey in the detention case of Qayoom.
Qayoom was detained on August 5 last year when BJP-led central government abrogated J&K’s special status and bifurcated into two Union Territories. Qayoom is currently lodged at Tihar Jail and is suffering from many ailments
“During the course of deliberations it came to be noticed that fall out of the judgment so passed shall have far reaching consequences on detention matters of individual members of the society leaving no scope for an individual or organisation to show even little bit of dissent based on ideology of a person or group of persons,” the Bar spokesperson said.
The judgment, he said also left no scope to call in question the ‘arbitrary exercise of power’ with a view to silence the voices of voiceless.
“The judgment it was stated also provides a blank cheque to be enchased by executive as and when they would deem fit as the judgment leads to believe in a system that thrives on punishing thoughts and belief and leaving it open for executive to act as judge, jury and executioner in total violation of the norms setup in the constitution,” the spokesperson said.
He said the meeting also took note of the fact that very few cases were being taken up for consideration under the category of ‘extremely urgent matters’ leaving lot of scope and time to deal with other urgent matters including liberty matters, which are gathering dust in the registry for want of final hearing and in the meanwhile the period of detention gets expired rendering the petitions in-fructuous.
“The association also considered the taking of appropriate steps for regular opening of courts subject to guidelines to be followed, the difficulty faced by lawyers community in approaching the bank located within court premises be made accessible to the lawyers as is being done in case of judicial employees,” the spokesperson said.
The meeting also impressed upon the Chief Justice to look into the grievances of the advocates about hearing of liberty and other matters and making scope for hearing cases categorised other than ‘extremely urgent matters’ and period within which cases are being listed after filing be minimised , together with considering opening of courts in physical mode at earliest, the spokesperson added.
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