The Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has delivered a stinging rebuke to the casual use of preventive detention laws, striking down an order passed under the Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 and likening its invocation to the routine issuance of a traffic challan.
At the Srinagar wing of the court, Justice Rahul Bharti dismantled a detention order issued in April 2024 against Shabir Ahmad, holding that it suffered from a complete lack of independent scrutiny. The Court found that the extraordinary power of preventive detention had been exercised with startling nonchalance.
In sharp words, the judge observed that the law appeared to have been triggered with less seriousness than what accompanies a routine traffic violation. Preventive detention, the Court underscored, cannot be reduced to a bureaucratic reflex.
The order in question had been issued by the District Magistrate of Anantnag under Section 8 of the PSA, drawing entirely from a dossier submitted by the Senior Superintendent of Police. The allegations rested on Ahmad’s purported links to an individual accused in a case registered under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and his alleged online activity.
But the record told a thinner story. Ahmad was neither named as an accused nor shown as an undertrial in that criminal case. He had previously been released, with authorities citing insufficient evidence. The High Court found no fresh material to justify placing him behind bars under a preventive detention framework.
What troubled the bench most was the mechanical nature of the process. The District Magistrate’s “subjective satisfaction,” the legal threshold required for such detention, appeared to be little more than a reproduction of the police dossier. There was no visible independent assessment, no discernible reasoning—just paperwork moving from one desk to another.
The Court concluded that the detention was illegal from the very beginning. Nearly two years after the order was signed, it directed Ahmad’s release, holding that even the remaining period of custody could not be sustained in law.
The ruling sends a pointed reminder: preventive detention is an exceptional power, not an administrative shortcut.
