The High Court of J&K and Ladakh Thursday ordered immediate release of two persons from south Kashmir while quashing their preventive detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA).
Underscoring that the authorities’ serious procedural lapses vitiated the detention process and violated the constitutional safeguards guaranteed to the detainees, a bench of Justice Rahul Bharti overturned the detention orders against Asif Ahmad Dar of Pulwama and Amir Wani of Anantnag.
The Court directed their immediate release.
In case of Dar who was booked under PSA on April 30 last year, the Court found that while the detention order informed him of his right to make a representation to both the government and the detaining authority, the execution report prepared by the police informed him only about his right to approach the government, thereby denying him a vital constitutional safeguard.
In Wani’s case also, the Court noted that mandatory procedural safeguards had not been followed while processing his preventive detention, rendering the same legally unsustainable.
The court observed that preventive detention passed on August 5 last year, which directly curtails personal liberty, must strictly comply with constitutional and statutory safeguards. “Any deviation from these mandatory requirements strikes at the root of the detention and cannot be sustained in law”.
Moreover, the Court held that such procedural omissions often come to light only after judicial scrutiny of the detention records, as a detainee cannot reasonably be expected to know what transpires within government files.
With the conclusion that the constitutional safeguards had been violated, the Court quashed the detention orders and all consequential government orders, directing the jail authorities to release the duo forthwith.
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