HC quashes PSA detention of 3 persons

Srinagar, May 14

The High Court of J&K and Ladakh Tuesday quashed detention of three persons who had been booked under Public Safety Act ( PSA).

While allowing their habeas corpus petitions, various benches of the court quashed the detention orders of the trio and ordered their immediate release.

A bench of Justice Rahul Bharti quashed the detention order under PSA against Umar Nazir Rather of Tral passed by District Magistrate Pulwama last year.

Dossier against Rather indicated that he along with other persons had lured gullible students and their parents to avail the leak of question papers for an examination of B.Sc Nursing Course admission to be conducted by the Board of Professional Entrance Examination (BoPEE) in exchange for hefty money.

“This Court holds that the preventive detention of the petitioner was misconceived given the fact that the alleged acts of omission and commission on the part of the petitioner allegedly acting in complicity with the (other) persons resulting in his implication in FIR No. 53/2023 of the Police Station Tral in no manner can be construed to be prejudicial to the maintenance of public order,” the court said, while setting aside the detention order dated June 26, 2023 passed by the District Magistrate, Pulwama.

The Court ordered that the petitioner be restored to his personal liberty.

Allowing their pleas, the bench of Justice Puneet Gupta quashed detention under PSA against Ajaz Ahmed Peer of Baramulla and InayatRashid Bhat of Ganderbal.

The court directed that the detainees be released forthwith from preventive detention if not required in any other case. Peer was booked under PSA by Deputy commissioner Baramulla in terms of an order dated September 15, 2022 while Bhat was detained by virtue of an order passed by District Magistrate Ganderbal on June 25, 2022.