Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 9: High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has quashed the detention order of a youth citing serious concerns about the grounds of detention being based on a “caricatured” opinion instead of an objective assessment.
Justice Rahul Bharti observed, “if taken as it is, then any law abiding citizen can be stereotyped at the hands of law and enforcement agency/authority for the sake of being put behind the bars not for any penal act of omission and commission on his/her part amounting to violation of law but just for the reason that law and enforcement agency/authority is so profiling a person to be a bad person”.
The case involved Waqas Riyaz Khan, a 26-year-old resident of Srinagar, who filed a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. The petitioner sought a writ of habeas corpus to challenge the preventive detention order issued against him under Section 8 of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978. The detention order was issued by the District Magistrate, Srinagar, based on a dossier submitted by the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Srinagar, alleging the petitioner’s involvement in anti-national activities.
Justice Bharti found the grounds of detention fact-deficient and lacking any context. He criticized the dossier for presenting a mere opinionated caricature of Khan, devoid of concrete evidence or specific instances to support the accusations.
“The grounds of detention text wise spelled out by the District Magistrate, Srinagar lack a context and, therefore, do not and cannot count the basis for generating a subjective satisfaction which is meant to operate to an objective situation in front”, the court said, adding “while subjective satisfaction is crucial in preventive detention cases, it cannot disregard the necessity of presenting an objective basis before the detention authority”.
“It is exercise of subjective satisfaction under preventive detention jurisdiction which is meant to be respected but that does not mean that the said subjective satisfaction can dispense with state of objectivity to be produced before the detention authority to apply its mind and draw a subjective satisfaction for the purpose of subjecting a person to suffer preventive detention”, the bench observed.
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