HC quashes PSA detention of Waqar Bhatti

Srinagar, Oct 20: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh has quashed detention of social activist Muhammad Waqar Bhatti from Rajouri’s Thanamandi, who was booked under Public Safety Act (PSA) in February this year.

Noting that the detention order was without an application of mind and constitutional and statutory safeguards available to Bhatti were observed in breach, a bench of Justice M A Chowdhary ordered release of the 40- year- old forthwith, if he was not involved in any other case.

The detention order passed by the District Magistrate Rajouri on February 21, 2025 was held as “unsustainable” on a number of counts by the court in response to Bhatti’s plea.

The court underscored that the detention order was liable to be quashed for not informing the detainee that he could make representation to the detaining authority against his detention. And also, the time frame within which the detainee could file representation was not specified in the order, the court noted.

Besides, the court recorded the detention as "unsustainable" because of non- communication of the result of the representation to the detainee.

The court also observed that there was non-supply of the whole of the material which incapacitated the detainee to file an effective and meaningful representation to the detaining authority as well as government.

“Non application of mind by the detaining authority, in as much as the grounds of detention are almost xerox copy of the police dossier, it can safely be held that the detainee was disabled to exercise his right to file a representation against his detention, in terms of Article 22(5) of the Constitution of India, “the court said.

The Court concluded that the detaining authority had passed the impugned detention order “arbitrarily and mechanically” without application of mind and the constitutional and statutory safeguards available to the detainee were also observed in breach.

This, the court said, vitiated the impugned detention order, which rendered the same “unsustainable and liable to be quashed.”

In its decision while quashing the detention of Bhatti, the court observed that personal liberty was one of the most cherished freedoms, “perhaps more important that the other freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution.”

“It was for this reason that the Founding Fathers enacted the safeguards in Article 22 in the Constitution so as to limit the power of the State to detain a person without trial, which may otherwise pass the test of Article 21, by humanizing the harsh authority over individual liberty,” the court said.

“In a democracy governed by the rule of law, the drastic power to detain a person without trial for ‘security of the State’ and/or ‘maintenance of public order’ must be strictly construed,” it added.

However, the court held that where individual liberty comes into conflict with the interest of the security of the State or public order then the liberty of the individual must give way to the larger interest of the nation.