Srinagar: “Keeping a person under preventive custody without compelling reasons and depriving him from making an effective representation renders detention order illegal and bad in law,” the J&K High Court once again said on Monday while directing government authorities to release a resident of Shopian district who was slapped with Public Safety Act (PSA) prior to the abrogation of Article 370.

Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey recorded that although the detention records had been produced by the government counsel, they did not contain anything as would suggest that there were compelling reasons for the respondents for keeping the detenue in preventive custody and that the ordinary law was not sufficient to take care of his alleged subversive activities.

“As per pleadings and contentions raised at bar, the detenue has been prevented from making an effective representation against his detention as he was not supplied the dossier and the other allied material and has, as such, been deprived of an important constitutional right, and that the detaining authority did not apply his mind while passing the detention order and has not revealed as to on what materials he assumed subjective satisfaction regarding necessity of having the subject detained when the detenu was in police custody in connection with case FIR no. 53/2016 and 54/2016 of police station Zainapora,” Justice Magrey said.

The court pointed out that nowhere do the respondents state that from the year of registration of FIR 53/2016 & 54/2016, till the year of issuance of impugned order, that is, 2019, the detenue has indulged in activities that additionally constituted to commission of offence which compelled the detaining authority to issue the impugned order.

Justice Magrey recorded there must have been some additional material adverted to and considered by the detaining authority in arriving at a conclusion that the ordinary law was not enough for deterring the detenue from indulging in the alleged subversive activities, registered against the detenue three years back where no bail has even been granted to him and that being unavailable in the instant case renders the impugned order as bad in law.

“In the above background, the petition succeeds and is allowed as such. The detention order issued by the District Magistrate, Shopian, detaining the detenue, namely Shaheen Ahmad Parray, resident of Shangpora, Zainapora, District Shopian, in preventive detention, is quashed and the detenue is directed to be released from the preventive custody forthwith,” the court directed.

NUSRAT SIDIQ