‘Worse than traffic challan’: J&K HC nixes PSA detention order | India News

SRINAGAR: With “non-seriousness” invoked by the Public Safety Act (PSA) authorities against a suspect that amounted to sloppiness even in issuing “routine traffic challans”, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has released and ordered the release of a man sentenced to nearly two years in jail under the Jammu and Kashmir Preventive Detention Act.A single-judge bench of Justice Rahul Bharati on April 20, 2024 quashed the detention order against Shabir Ahmed Dar, 28, ruling that the action against the Kokernag resident of Anantnag was “invalid right from its inception”. The PSA allows detention for up to two years without trial.“There is no hesitation in the observation of this court that the J&K Public Safety Act is invoked against the petitioner by the non-seriousness of the standard with which even a motorist is not subject to a regular traffic charge,” Justice Bharti said in a recent order.J&K politicians, especially former Chief Ministers Mehbooba Mufti And Sajad Lone of the People’s Conference, has long complained of hundreds of illegal PSA detentions and pressed for the release of such people.In this case, Anantnag SSP submitted a dossier against Dar to the District Magistrate (DM) on April 17, 2024 for PSA detention of Dar, claiming that his activities were “prejudicial to the security of Jammu and Kashmir”. Twelve days later, DM ordered Dar to be detained in Jammu jail. Section 8 of the PSA empowers the J&K DM to detain anyone under the PSA on security grounds.In this case, Anantnag relied on a two-page police dossier and an FIR dated July 2022 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) to file a case against DM Dar. The reasons for the detention cited Dar’s work at a madrasa in Kokarnag as well as suspicious activities on social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp and Snapchat.Dar went to the High Court against the detention in May 2024. Justice Bharti said his detention was “literally at the behest of SSP Anantnag, with DM Anantnag, at no point exercising his independent mind”.Justice Bharti questioned how the authorities could cite an FIR in which Dar was not identified as an accused or undertrial to justify their apprehension about “alleged activities considered prejudicial to the security of the state”.“Simply put, the petitioner has been subjected to preventive detention only by a blank reference on the part of the SSP followed by an equally lenient plea on behalf of DM Anantnag,” the High Court held.