HC quashes PSA detention against advocate Bhat

Srinagar, May 10: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh has quashed detention under public Safety Act (PSA) against secretary of erstwhile Kashmir Bar Association, advocate Muhammad Ashraf Bhat. A bench of Justice Rahul Bharti quashed the detention order passed by the District Magistrate Srinagar on July 16 last year against Bhat, who had petitioned court against the order.

The court observed that the “exercise of preventive detention jurisdiction is a double-edged sword which is unsparing both for the hand which wields it and the hand which bears its blow”.

“If mishandled by the wielder of said sword, then the effect stays on the side of the wielder whereas the relief passes on to the side of the person aimed to suffer its blow, and which precisely is the situation in hand before this Court in the context of the present case,” the court said.

The Court pointed out that the respondent No.2 (District Magistrate, Srinagar) if had acted with due diligence at his end, would have come across with a fact from the records of his office that the petitioner was subjected to preventive detention in the year 2019 which came to be set aside by the intervention of the High Court of J&K and Ladakh. “This omission is too serious to be taken casually, much less by this court as being the guardian of the fundamental rights of a citizen of India which the petitioner undoubtedly is.”

The Court underscored that the preventive detention was further flawed because the petitioner was being kept uninformed about the fate of his written representation which was made not only to the Advisory Board but also to the District Magistrate Srinagar and to the Principal Secretary to Government, Home Department, Union Territory of J&K.

While the court held that these two grounds were self-sufficient by themselves to render the preventive detention of the petitioner bad in the eyes of law, it directed that Bhat be restored, without loss of any time, to his personal liberty by his immediate release from the concerned Jail. The Court ordered the Superintendent of the concerned Jail detaining the petitioner to act in compliance with the directions being issued with respect to his release from preventive detention custody.