Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir High Court has quashed detention order under Public Safety Act against “hardcore JKLF activist” and another youth, accused of pelting stones on government forces, in Baramulla district of north Kashmir.
District Magistrate, Baramulla, had passed detention order (No. 84-DMB/PSA/2017) on 21 August this year by which Ghulam Mohamad Baghwan, the ‘hardcore JKL activist’ came to be detained and lodged in Central Jail, Kotebalwal, Jammu.
Referring to a Supreme Court judgment, a bench of M K Hanjura said if the apprehension of the detaining authority was true, the bail application had to be opposed and in case bail was granted, challenge against that order in the higher forum had to be raised. “Merely on the ground that an accused in detention as an under trial prisoner was likely to get bail an order of detention under the (preventive detention) should not ordinarily be passed,” the court said, underlining that Bhagwan could not have been detained after taking recourse to the provision of PSA.
“The proper course would have been to challenge the order of bail, if granted to him. (Bhagwan) could not have been detained preventatively. This single infraction renders the order of detention liable to be set aside,” the court said and quashed the PSA detention against Ghulam Mohammad Baghwan son of Abdul Khaliq Baghwan of Sangrampora, Sopore forthwith from the preventive custody, unless required in any other case.
Similarly, the court quashed detention order passed by District Magistrate Baramulla against Zafar-ul-Islam Shah son of Abdul Rashid Shah of Dangerpora Sopore and directed authorities to release him forthwith from the preventive custody “unless required in any other case.”
According to PSA order, Shah on 29 July 2016 resorted to heavy stone pelting on the police and CRPF personnel deployed at Waripora Bazar.
