Srinagar, Oct 13, KDC: In a recent court ruling, the High Court has upheld the detention of petitioner Abdul Qayoom Bhat under the Narcotics NDPS Act, setting aside an interim order passed by the learned Single Judge. The case revolved around the petitioner’s detention, which was initially stayed before the execution of the detention order, reported Srinagar based news agency Kashmir Dot Com.
The division bench led by Chief Justice N Kotiswar Singh and Justice Rajesh Sekhri, has asserted that the pre-emption of detention orders through legal recourse prior to their execution effectively precludes the subsequent contention that such orders should be invalidated due to an absence of a “live link” between the present circumstances and the conditions prevalent at the time the detention orders were originally issued.
During the proceedings, the learned counsel for the respondent (writ petitioner) could not establish any significant grounds for the petitioner’s release. The petitioner’s argument was based on the perceived delay between his release on bail on November 11, 2022, and the subsequent issuance of the detention order on April 27, 2023.
However, the detention order revealed that the Sr. Superintendent of Police Station, Srinagar, had examined the records and submitted support materials on April 19, 2023, after moving the concerned authorities on February 28, 2023. Subsequently, the detention order was officially passed on April 27, 2023. The court found that there was no undue delay in the process and that authorities had been considering the petitioner’s activities since his release on bail.
The court emphasized that the question of whether the delay had severed the live link between the petitioner’s activities and the detention order should be examined after a thorough review of the records, rather than on the first day of consideration.
The High Court determined that none of the conditions required for the suspension of the detention order had been met, as outlined in previous cases. The court also took into account the observation of the Hon’ble Supreme Court that challenging a detention order before its execution precluded the argument of a lack of a live link between the petitioner’s situation before and after detention.
In light of these considerations, the High Court concluded that the interim order suspending the detention order dated April 27, 2023, should not have been passed by the learned Writ Court. As a result, the High Court allowed the appeal, setting aside the interim order dated May 10, 2023, and instructing the authorities to execute the detention order against the writ petitioner, Abdul Qayoom Bhat.
This seminal legal doctrine emerged from a case originating from the suspension of a detention order pursuant to the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances Act of 1988. The appellants mounted a multifaceted challenge, asserting that the immediate suspension of the detention order, as initiated upon their motion, ran counter to the guiding principle of circumspection when granting interim orders in cases of preventive detention.
The respondents, in response to the detention order issued against them, posited its illegitimacy, contending a violation of Article 21 of the Constitution of India and challenging the veracity of their implication in a drug-related case while already on bail.
The court opined that the temporal delay in executing the detention order did not suffice to vitiate the order, particularly in light of the authorities’ active monitoring of the petitioner’s activities subsequent to his release on bail.
It, consequently, concluded that none of the five conditions for challenging the detention order, as established in the Alka Subhash Gadia case, were met in the present matter.
The bench astutely noted that the respondent had been granted bail on 11.11.2022, and the detention order was issued approximately four months later, on 27.04.2023. It was judiciously observed, “From the pleadings of the writ petition relating to the detention order, it appears that the authorities were considering the activities of the writ petitioner since his release on bail also, and hence, it cannot be definitively said, without examining the records, that the delay of four and a half months had severed the live link.”
In its final deliberation, it declared that the existence of a “live link” between the impugned activities and the detention order remained indeterminate without a comprehensive review of the records.
Consequently, the interim order that suspended the detention order was deemed inappropriate and the bench allowed the appeal and the order of detention was upheld. (KDC)
