Chief Justice N Kotiswar Singh and Justice MA Chowdhary noted that the authority had justified Gul’s detention by stating that he was a “negative critic” of the government’s policies and that he used his tweets to “provoke” people against the government.
The Court emphasised that this could not be a ground to order the journalist’s detention, particularly when the government could not show any specific instance of how Gul’s tweets provoked people against the government.
“Such a tendency on the part of the detaining authority to detain the critics of policies or commission/omission of the government machinery, as in the case of the present detenu-a professional media person, in our considered opinion is an abuse of the preventive law,” the Court added.
Source: Barandbench
