HC quashes PSA detention of Pulwama man

Srinagar, Feb 17: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh has ordered release of a man from south Kashmir’s Pulwama district while quashing his detention under Public Safety Act (PSA).

A bench of Justice Rahul Bharti While quashing detention order dated 27.09.2022 passed by the District Magistrate Pulwama under PSA against Manzoor Ahmad Bhat of Nikloora of District Pulwama, ordered that the petitioner (Bhat) is directed to be restored to his personal liberty by the Superintendent District Jail, Kathua.

“The District Magistrate, Pulwama in the name of application of mind matched the SSP Pulwama concerned in entertaining the same tone and tenor of assumption as fed by the SSP Pulwama which is exhibited from the fact that the purported grounds of detention order is a copy-paste of the dossier,” the Court said. “….the preventive detention of the petitioner has been effected on speculation and assumptions and the detenu cannot be allowed to carry forward its life any further at the cost of doing serious wrong to the fundamental right to personal liberty of the petitioner.”

In fact, the Court said, during the course of his preventive detention, the petitioner suffered a personal tragedy in the death of his eight months’ old daughter who came to expire on 10.2.2024 while he was in the preventive custody.

“(The petitioner) could not have even the solace of being with his wife in the moment of personal loss and grief because of preventive detention slapped on him by fictionalizing his personal liberty prejudicial to the Security of State.”

The Court held the preventive detention of Bhat as illegal and quashed the same.