High Court quashes PSA detention of Bandipora man

Srinagar, March 17: The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh overturned a detention of a Bandipora man under Public Safety Act (PSA) while observing the detention order is “unsustainable” and “bad” in the eyes of law.
Quashing a detention order of Farooq Ahmad Khan who was detained under PSA on June 25, last year for allegedly having “fundamentalist ideology”, the court observed that the order of detention is based on “vague, obscure and ambiguous” grounds.
Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal said that the essential requirements that needs to be fulfilled in order to make the detention valid, are not abided by the detaining authorities.
“This shows the casual behavior of the detaining authority and the non-application of mind before arriving at subjective satisfaction,” the court said.
The petitioner through counsel S. R. Hussain contended that the grounds on which the detention order is based contained bald assertions and no specific allegations which could have been rebutted by the detenue to show that the grounds of detention are non-existing.
The counsel submitted that the ground that detenu is “of fundamentalist ideology and that with the passage of time the detenu has become a hardcore fundamentalist” is extremely vague and has no clear nexus with the maintenance of public order or the Security of the State.
Hussain further submitted that in the grounds of detention detenue was alleged to be an OGW of a militant outfit Lashkar-i-Toiba and was involved in instigating the youth, however no details pertaining to the allegations have been provided anywhere.
On the other hand, the respondents argued that detenue being allegedly an “anti-national element, desperate character and habitually indulging in act of violence,” as such, “falls under the category of being a threat to security of the state and, accordingly, was detained after following due process of law and all the procedural formalities as envisaged under the PSA.”
Analyzing the record, the court noted that the grounds of detention are a replica and a carbon copy of the dossier furnished to the detaining authority for making an order of detention.
The court said that detaining authority has completely failed to apply its mind and has passed the order in a mechanical and routine manner.
“This shows total non-application of mind on part of the detaining authority in the process of deriving subjective satisfaction which has become causality,” the bench said.
Adding, “It cannot simply reiterate, whatever is written in the dossier, therefore, the order of detention gets vitiated in the eyes of law by acting as a rubber stamp.”
Regarding the alleged involvement of detenue in an FIR registered in 2006, the court said that it has no proximate relation with the detention order.
Justice Nargal underscored that a period of almost 16 years has passed since the registration of FIR and the detention order was passed against the detenue in 2022. The only FIR in 2022 has no live or proximate link between the two.
The court said that there was nothing on record to substantiate whether any case was even registered against detenu during the intervening period of 16 years or there was any complaint against the detenue.
“In case, the stand of respondents is taken at its face value that immediately after his release from first detention order passed in 2006, his activities were prejudiced to the State, then what prevented the authorities to book him under Criminal Law or invoking detention laws for 16 long years is not forthcoming from record,” the bench said.
The court held that there must be a direct and immediate connection between the detenue’s prior behavior and the behavior of the accused, that are harmful to upkeep the public order.
Allowing the plea, Justice Nargal said that the period between the order of custody and the occurrences mentioned in the grounds of detention is just too large in the current case to assume such a relationship exists.
“Thus, the order of detention cannot sustain the test of law,” the bench said while directing the authorities to release the detenue immediately.