The High Court was hearing a petition filed by one Sarpreet Singh challenging the preventive detention orders passed against him by the Jammu Superintendent of Police.
Singh contended that the detention order was in breach of Article 22(5) of the Constitution and the provisions of the Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act, and sought quashing of the same.
He claimed that the detaining authority did not not attribute any specific allegation for detaining him.
Singh argued that he was incapacitated in filing a representation against the orders as he was not informed about the grounds of detention in a language that he could understand.
He claimed that he only understood Dogri language but the authorities explained the grounds in English and Hindi. He pointed out that the detention orders were passed when he was already in custody in connection with a criminal case and thus there was no application of mind by the authorities.
The Superintendent of Police in his affidavit stated that the order was passed for maintenance of ‘public order’ and if he is let free, there was every likelihood of him re-indulging in ‘scaring and terrorising’ the people of the area, as he is a hardcore criminal.
The officer stated that Singh’s detention under preventive law is only to keep him at bay as a precautionary measure, and not as punishment.
Justice Chowdhary at the outset noted that the detention cannot be sustained since Singh was already in custody when the same was ordered.
“Here is a case where detenue was stated to be under detention in a criminal case and the order of detention despite that was executed, depriving the detenue to avail remedy of filing representation to the Detaining Authority within statutory period. The non-application of mind of the Detaining Authority is also explicit from the fact that even the detention order does not say anything with regard to the detention of the detenue in a criminal case, leaving apart to assign the compelling reasons to resort to order preventive detention,” the Court said.
Source: Barandbench
