Srinagar, Oct 9: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh Friday quashed detention of man from south Kashmir’s Anantnag, who had been booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA), holding that unexplained delays by the police and the detaining authority had severed the live and proximate link between the alleged activities and the need for his detention.
A bench of Justice Rajesh Sekhri set aside the District Magistrate, Anantnag’s preventive detention order dated January 30, 2025, against Gulzar Ahmad Bhat while allowing his plea assailing the order.
The detention record indicated that the police had attributed alleged unlawful activities to Bhat in connection with Tahreek-e-Hurriyat, which had been declared an unlawful association under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). A case under Sections 10 and 13 of the UAPA was registered against him at Police Station Anantnag in 2024.
The contention of the police was that Bhat was in contact with associates of the banned organisation and provided financial and logistical support for its activities. However, the court held that he could not be arrested in the case due to insufficient evidence and was subsequently bound down and released on a surety bond.
In its decision doing away with Bhat’s detention, the court noted that although the alleged incident dated back to January 10, 2024, the sponsoring authority proposed his detention only on January 21, 2025, after a gap of more than one year. The District Magistrate issued the detention order on January 30, 2025.
The delay in proposing detention, coupled with the time taken to issue the order and the failure to execute it for more than four months, raised serious doubts about the genuineness of the authorities’ satisfaction regarding the necessity of preventive detention, the court said.
The Court, while relying on the decisions of the Supreme Court, reiterated that a preventive detention order must maintain a live and proximate connection between the past activities attributed to a person and the immediate need to prevent future threats to public order or state security.
The court held that an unreasonable and unexplained delay in proposing or passing a detention order could undermine its validity by snapping this essential link.
It observed that if the sponsoring officer was actually and genuinely concerned about anti-national activities of the petitioner, he was expected to act with greater promptitude. The detaining authority, it said, was also expected to issue the order without undue delay.
Furthermore, the Court observed that the unexplained delay cast considerable doubt on the genuineness of the detaining authority’s satisfaction and the credibility of the authorities involved in proposing and ordering the detention.
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