Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Mar 27: High Court has questioned the delay in passing the detention order against a person involved in narco activities and quashed the same for such act on part of the detaining authority.
Justice Rahul Bharti while quashing the detention order of one Shafatullah Shah of Sopore in Baramulla district said if the activities of the petitioner would have been so prejudicial and pressing ones on the basis of the dossier submitted by the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Sopore on 15th of January, 2024, the Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir would not have allowed three months’ time period to go by in making up mind that the case presented against him was deserving a quick response from his end so as to not let the petitioner have his liberty at his disposal for a period of three months to indulge in repeat of his objectionable activities.
“This time lag between placing of the dossier and passing of the detention order ex-facie may look to be very short in impression but in fact is quite sufficient to hold that the dossier itself was lacking any conviction to generate preventive detention of the petitioner-Shah that too in the mind frame of the Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir”, Justice Bharti recorded.
The court accordingly quashed the detention order No. DIVCOM- “K”/55/2024 dated 16th of April, 2024 read with Government Order No. Home/PB-V/1193 of 2024 dated 3rd of June, 2024 and directed his release from jail.
The court said if the SSP concerned forwarded the dossier to the Divisional Commissioner Kashmir in the month of January then why after sitting over the matter for almost three months, the Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir came forward with passing of the detention order thereby holding that the petitioner’s alleged activities were falling within the scope of mischief of Section 3 of the PIT NDPS Act, therefore, warranting his preventive detention and his lodgement in Central Jail, Kot Bhalwal, Jammu.
“The preventive detention of the petitioner was vitiated from the very inception in the sense that the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Sopore avoided which this court can say observe with a deliberate design, to bring on record of the dossier the fact that even the charge against the petitioner and his other co-accused in relation to FIR No. 19/2023 had been altered diluting the prosecution’s case and later the petitioner having applied for bail earning it on merits and not as a matter of mercy”, Justice Bharti recorded.
Court said the cumulative effect of all these facts and circumstances render the prevention detention of the petitioner illegal right from the very inception and, therefore, warrants quashment.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
