GNS LEGAL CORRESPONDENT
Srinagar, Dec 01 (GNS): The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has quashed a preventive detention order issued under the PIT NDPS Act, holding that the authorities failed to demonstrate why ordinary criminal law was inadequate to deal with the accused and that the order suffered from a lack of independent application of mind.
The judgment, delivered by Justice Mohammad Akram Choudhary, came in a petition filed by Tariq Ahmad Ganaie of Pulwama, who had been placed under preventive detention through an order passed in May this year.
The Court, as per GNS, observed that the grounds of detention were vague, sweeping and incapable of enabling the detenue to mount an effective defence, as they did not contain concrete or specific allegations of drug trafficking. Moreover, the Court took exception to the fact that the grounds were a verbatim reproduction of the police dossier, a practice the Supreme Court has repeatedly held to be indicative of “non-application of mind” by the detaining authority.
Reinforcing its findings with established legal precedents, including Chaju Ram, Jai Singh, and the three-judge bench ruling in Rekha v. State of Tamil Nadu, the Court underlined that preventive detention cannot be invoked as a substitute for normal criminal procedure, especially when the prosecution has not attempted to act under ordinary penal law.
Quoting its own detailed reasoning, the Court remarked, “In view of the legal position… and in particular having regard to the fact that the detention order being a verbatim copy of the dossier, vitiates the same which is not sustainable, the impugned detention order passed on vague grounds and failure on the part of the detaining authority to record satisfaction that normal law proved insufficient to contain the petitioner. The impugned order is, therefore, liable to be quashed on these counts.”
Consequently, Justice Choudhary ordered that Ganaie be released forthwith, provided he is not required in any other case.
The petitioner was represented by Advocates Zahid Hussain Dar and Naveed Bukhtiyar. (GNS)
