The Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has quashed a preventive detention order passed under Section 8 of the Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 (PSA), holding that the detention was founded on a bare police dossier containing only assumptions and unsupported allegations, without any recent factual material to justify the extraordinary curtailment of personal liberty.

The Court held that the District Magistrate had mechanically reproduced the police dossier without independent application of mind. Stressing that personal liberty is a fundamental right, it observed that "personal liberty of a citizen is not a plaything for the District Police and District Magistracy to flirt with", and cautioned that the mere existence of preventive detention powers under the PSA does not give the authorities a licence to invoke them as a matter of routine.

Justice Rahul Bharti observed, “Personal liberty of a citizen is not a play thing for the District Police and District Magistracy to flirt with least realizing that there is nothing highest in the Constitution of India in terms of a right/s than fundamental right/s guaranteed to citizen/s of India. Any action of the State and its officials which tends to interfere and intermeddle with any of the fundamental rights in particular fundamental right to life and personal liberty is supposed to be strictly in accordance with law providing and prescribing. Simply because, J&K Public Safety Act, 1978 provides for preventive detention of a person with respect to the contingencies as envisaged therein does not hand out a licence to the District Police and/or District Magistrate or for that matter even the Government to resort to preventive detention as a matter of routine”.

Advocate Sheikh Mushtaq appeared for the petitioner and Furqan Yaqoob, GA appeared for the respondent.

The petitioner, Fayaz Ahmad Lone, through his father, challenged his preventive detention ordered on May 7, 2025 by the District Magistrate, Pulwama. The detention order, passed under Section 8 of the PSA, was based on a dossier submitted by the SSP, alleging that the petitioner had links with the terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), had developed separatist ideology, and had assisted an eliminated JeM commander. The dossier also referred to FIRs registered in 2015 and 2019, along with preventive proceedings initiated under Section 107 CrPC in 2024.

The petitioner contended that the allegations were baseless and unsupported by any factual material warranting preventive detention.

Examining the record, the Court found that the grounds of detention were a "mirror image" of the police dossier, demonstrating complete non-application of mind by the District Magistrate.

“To put in simple words, the Sr. Superintendent of Police (SSP), Awantipora through his dossier is meaning to say that subjecting a citizen to preventive detention custody is a matter of ipse dixit for which nothing factual is required to be reported except self entertained impression and assumption on the part of the District Police”, the Bench noted.

The Court further noted that if the authorities genuinely believed the petitioner had violated the bond executed under Section 107 CrPC, they ought to have initiated proceedings for forfeiture of that bond instead of mechanically resorting to preventive detention.

Holding that the entire exercise stood vitiated by serious illegality, the Court quashed the detention order dated May 7, 2025 along with the approval, confirmation and extension orders passed thereafter. It directed the Jail Superintendent to release the petitioner forthwith unless required in any other case.

Cause Title: Fayaz Ahmad Lone v. UT of J&K and others HCP No. 162/2025

Appearances:

Petitioner: Sheikh Mushtaq, Advocate.

Respondent: Furqan Yaqoob, GA.

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