Srinagar, Oct 10 (UNI) The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has quashed a preventive detention order under the Public Safety Act (PSA) against an Anantnag man, holding that unexplained delays of over a year in proposing his detention and four months in executing the order snapped the “live and proximate link” between the alleged activities and the need for preventive detention.
Justice Rajesh Sekhri allowed a petition filed by Gulzar Ahmad Bhat, challenging the detention order dated January 30, 2025, passed by the District Magistrate, Anantnag, under the PSA.
In a judgment pronounced on Friday, the court held that the inordinate and unexplained delays cast considerable doubt on the genuineness of the detaining authority’s subjective satisfaction and rendered the detention order legally unsustainable.
According to the detention record, the Senior Superintendent of Police, Anantnag, had proposed Bhat’s detention on January 21, 2025, based on allegations that he was associated with the banned organisation Tehreek-e-Hurriyat and provided financial and logistical support to its activities.
The allegations stemmed from source information received by Anantnag Police on January 10, 2024, following which FIR No. 14/2024 was registered against him under Sections 10 and 13 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The police alleged that Bhat had disclosed during questioning that he was a member of the organisation and maintained close contact with its associates. However, the judgment records that he could not be arrested in the UAPA case due to insufficient evidence and was released on a surety bond after being bound down.
The detention dossier also referred to two earlier cases registered against Bhat in 2017 and 2018, in both of which he had been granted bail.
Justice Sekhri observed that the sponsoring agency took more than a year from the alleged incident to propose preventive detention, while the District Magistrate took nine days to issue the order. The executing agency, meanwhile, failed to execute the detention order for more than four months.
Referring to Supreme Court judgments, the High Court reiterated that preventive detention must be supported by a live and proximate link between past conduct and the immediate necessity for detention.
“Such unreasonable and unexplained delay on the part of both the sponsoring officer and the detaining authority to ensure immediate detention of petitioner, does not commensurate to the fact situation of the case,” the Court observed. ” It throws a considerable doubt not only on the genuineness of the requisite satisfaction of the detaining authority but also on the credibility of the sponsoring officer and the detaining authority respectively in sponsoring detention of petitioner and making the order of detention after a considerable period, which undoubtedly results in snapping “live and proximate link” between the grounds of detention and purpose of detention.”
The Court held that the detention order stood vitiated and deserved to be quashed.
Allowing the petition, the High Court set aside the January 30, 2025, detention order and disposed of the connected application.
