Srinagar, July 17, KDC: Holding that a preventive detention order cannot survive on a police dossier containing “no whisper of factual content”, the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has quashed the detention of a Handwara resident under the Public Safety Act, questioning how a detenu could make an effective representation when the District Magistrate merely borrowed the police allegations without supporting facts.
Justice Rahul Bharti struck down the detention order after finding that the police dossier and the District Magistrate’s grounds of detention contained little more than opinionated assertions once a decade old criminal case relied upon by the authorities was excluded from consideration.
The petitioner had been detained under the Public Safety Act following a dossier submitted by the Senior Superintendent of Police, Handwara, alleging that his activities were prejudicial to the security of the Union Territory. The authorities primarily relied upon his involvement in an FIR registered in 2012, a previous preventive detention that had already been quashed by the High Court, confidential reports and security inputs, besides proceedings initiated under Section 126 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita.
Examining the detention record, the Court held that the reference to the 2012 FIR could not legitimately support the fresh detention because the petitioner had already been preventively detained on the basis of the same allegations in 2012 and that detention had been set aside earlier. Once those antecedents were removed from consideration, the Court found that the remaining material failed to disclose any factual basis for invoking the extraordinary power of preventive detention.
“There is no whisper of factual content” in the remaining dossier or grounds of detention that could justify treating the petitioner’s activities as prejudicial to the security of the State, the Court observed.
Justice Bharti said the authorities had relied only upon what the Court described as a “heavily loaded opinionated assessment” by branding the petitioner as having subversive behaviour, strong links with the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba and a bad character, without disclosing concrete facts supporting those conclusions.
The Court further observed that it “wonders” how a detenu could conceive of making any meaningful representation against such a dossier except to deny the conduct attributed by the District Police and later borrowed by the District Magistrate.
Holding that the grounds of detention were “vague and baseless”, Justice Bharti ruled that allowing such a detention to continue would amount to sacrificing the detenu’s fundamental right to personal liberty, something a constitutional court could never endorse.
The High Court consequently declared the detention order, along with the subsequent approval, confirmation and extension orders issued by the Home Department, illegal and directed the petitioner’s immediate release from preventive custody. (KDC)
