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| Court quashes HM ultra’s detention | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
Jammu, Dec 8: Allowing the habeas corpus petition filed by Mohammed Sadiq, through his wife, seeking quashment of detention order passed by the District Magistrate, Doda under PSA, Justice JP Singh of J&K High Court today quashed the detention order with directions to the respondents to set the petitioner to liberty forthwith, if not required in any other case.
Justice Singh while allowing the habeas corpus petition, after hearing Adv NP Kotwal appearing for the detenue and Additional Advocate General VK Chopra appearing for the state, and referring judgment of Supreme Court, observed that petitioner was in police custody at Police station u/s 307/121-A RPC r/w section 7/27 Arms Act when the District Magistrate had directed the detention of the detenue under Public Safety Act on the ground that in the event of petitioner's release on bail, he would influence and terrorize the prosecution witnesses. The detention order appears to have been passed with a view to restrain the detenue from influencing and terrorizing the prosecution witnesses in the event of his release on bail. Reason projected by DM in detaining the detenue in preventive custody is wholly unwarranted because law may not permit curtailment of one's liberty by the authority under PSA on grounds other than those which the legislature in its supreme wisdom has prescribed u/s 8 of the Act. The ground on which DM had proceeded to direct the detenue's preventive detention being foreign to those mentioned in section 8 of the Act, therefore, renders detenue's detention unsustainable.
Justice Singh further observed that perusal of the record reveal that the District Magistrate had directed the detention of detenue on the basis of police dossier which appears to have been drawn on October 30 probably of year 2006 because the dossier contains only the date and month of its signing by Superintendent of Police and does not indicate the year in which it has been prepared by the SP. Interpolation in the impugned detention order too indicates that the DM has exercised jurisdiction in detaining the petitioner in mechanical fashion. No reasons are forthcoming from the record as to why there was delay of nearly three months in execution of the detention order when the petitioner was already in police custody. With these observations, Court allowed the petition and quashed the detention order passed by the District Magistrate Doda on March 7, 2007 and directed the respondents to set the petitioner to liberty forthwith, if not required in any other case. JNF |
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