HC quashes PSA detention of 3 persons

Srinagar, Apr 2: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh Wednesday ordered release of three detainees while quashing their detention under Public Safety Act (PSA)

Allowing their separate pleas, a bench of Justice Sanjay Dhar quashed detention orders against Umer Kabir Mir from south Kashmir’s Pulwama district, Abdul Ahad alias Ahad Molvi from Baramulla and Muhammad Iqbal Koka of district Anantnag.

While Mir was detained in terms of order passed by the District Magistrate Pulwama on May 12, 2023, Molvi was booked on the basis of an order dated April 4, 2024 issued by District Magistrate Baramulla.

Koka was taken in custody by virtue of an order passed by District Magistrate Anantnag on January 1 last year against him.

The Court directed the authorities to release the detainees forthwith if they were not required in other cases.

“Vagueness of grounds of detention strikes at the root of the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority thereby vitiating the order of detention,” said the judgment passed by Justice Dhar in case of Mir.

Relying on a judgment pronounced last year by the division bench of the High Court of J&K and Ladakh the Court said that “vague and nonspecific grounds of detention firstly violate the fundamental right to life and personal liberty of the detainee under Article 21 of the constitution as it summarily curtails the liberty of the citizen based on the subjective satisfaction of the executive which is an exceptional power as against the general law relating to arrest and detention.”

The Court said it also deprives the detainee of giving a specific rebuttal to the grounds of detention which may satisfy the detaining authority or the Government that his detention is unlawful and compels him to answer the grounds of detention as “it is incorrect” or “it is false”.

Moreover, the Court observed that the vague and generalised grounds in the order of detention, smacks of arbitrariness on the part of the detaining authority rendering the subjective satisfaction arrived at as violative of Article 14 of the constitution.

“Vague and non-specific grounds raise the impression that the same has been done deliberately in order to deprive the detainee of giving a precise rebuttal”, it said.