District Magistrate Showed Casual Approach Towards Fundamental Right Of Personal Liberty: Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court Quashes Detention Order
The Court said that nothing can be more absurd than the inherent contradiction so obtaining in the grounds of the detention formulated by the DM on which order was passed.
The Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has observed that the District Magistrate’s failure to distinguish between "public order" and "security of the State," combined with factual errors, resulted in an absurd and contradictory detention order that violated the petitioner’s fundamental right to personal liberty.
The Bench of Justice Rahul Bharti observed, “What is a casual for the District Magistrate Srinagar is a causality to the fundamental right of the personal liberty of the petitioner which is further reflected on the grounds that by reckoning the alleged activities of the petitioner being adverse of the Government to the maintenance of public order, the quantum leap to order the detention of the petitioner by reference to the same activity being prejudicial to the security of the State is reflective of sense of loss of legal distinction at the end of the respondent No.2- District Magistrate Srinagar…Nothing can be more absurd than the inherent contradiction so obtaining in the grounds of the detention formulated by the respondent No.2- District Magistrate Srinagar on the basis of which the preventive detention order came to be passed against the petitioner.”
Advocate Sania Ghulam appeared for the Petitioner, while Government Advocate Jahingiri Dar appeared for the Respondents.
A habeas corpus writ petition was filed by the Petitioner herein, who was undergoing detention custody since May, 2025 in Jammu. The detention of the petitioner was ordered by Respondent No.2- District Magistrate, Srinagar, in terms of an Order purportedly acting under section 8 of the Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978, by reckoning that the Petitioner’s state of personal liberty is prejudicial to the maintenance of security of the State, thus, warranting its curtailment.
It was alleged by the Authorities that there was an objectionable and prejudicial state of activities of the petitioner, in the face of which the security of the state was likely to be prejudiced.
Following the issuance of the order, the petitioner was arrested on May 5, 2025, and transferred to the District Jail in Jammu. Within ten days, on May 14, 2025, the petitioner instituted a writ petition to challenge his confinement.
After the Government of Jammu and Kashmir approved the detention, they solicited an opinion from the Advisory Board. Based on that feedback, the Government confirmed the detention on June 2, 2025. In his petition, the petitioner assailed the actions of the SSP Srinagar, the District Magistrate, and the Home Department.
On August 4, 2025, the District Magistrate filed a counter-affidavit. This document followed the original grounds of detention closely but lacked any supporting annexures or documents to verify the claims made against the petitioner.
“In the grounds of detention so formulated, the respondent No.2- District Magistrate Srinagar refers that an extremist ideology has a strong hold on the petitioner and that he is in constant touch with some people who encouraged him to engage in anti-national activities on the basis of which the petitioner got motivated and indulged in anti-national activities by inciting the Public particularly the young people of the area and the surrounding areas to engage them in illegal activities. The petitioner within a short span of time is said to have become an incorrigible anti-national element of the area”, the Court said.
The Court also held that the detention order of the Petitioner is fundamentally flawed and that is by the state of application of mind on the part of Respondent No. 2- District Magistrate, Srinagar in scripting and signing the very detention order reflecting the pedantic level indulgence on the part of Respondent No.2- District Magistrate, Srinagar.
The petitioner argued that if the Magistrate was unable to identify the clear factual inaccuracy in his own documents, then his overall judgment in issuing the second detention order was not trustworthy. The court noted that this oversight suggested that the legal requirement for careful, independent consideration was not met during the decision-making process.
The Court remarked, “This manner of filing of counter affidavit is meant to be a risk to stay on the side of preventive detention order making authority when defending the detention order in a constitutional court of law as is in the present case and, therefore, the respondents cannot expect a constitutional court to extend any courtesy and concession in favour of UT of Jammu and Kashmir and District Magistrate concerned in overlooking the casualness in the matter of filing counter affidavit.”
Accordingly, the Court observed that the preventive detention of the Petitioner was illegal and, hence, quashed. The Petitioner was directed to be released from the concerned jail.
Cause Title: Muzaffar Farooq Mir v. UT of J&K and Ors. [HCP No.97/2025]
Appearances:
Petitioner: Advocate Sania Ghulam
Respondents: Government Advocate Jahingiri Dar