Zafar Ahmed Pray, a resident of Shopian in south Kashmir, was placed under PSA last year and challenged his detention in court. Commenting strongly on the matter, the court said that in a democratic country like India, where the rule of law prevails, the police and judges cannot pick up a person and interrogate him without registering a case against him.
Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court. (Photo Courtesy: jkhighcourt.nic.in)
New Delhi: The Jammu and Kashmir High Court has rejected the detention of a 26-year-old Kashmiri resident under the Public Safety Act (PSA), saying that confirming the detention would be tantamount to admitting that India is a police state, which it is not.
The court emphasized that in a democratic country like India, where the law rules, police and judges cannot pick up and question a person without registering a case, The Indian Express reported.
In this case, Zafar Ahmed, a resident of south Kashmir’s Shopian, challenged his detention in court in connection with a case registered under the PSA last year.
Justice Rahul Bharti delivered the verdict in the case on March 22, which was handed down on Monday (April 15). He decided that accepting such behavior of respondent no. 2 (District Magistrate, Shopian) would be tantamount to accepting the negative perception of India as a police state which is by any means beyond imagination.
According to Justice Bharti, the detention order is based only on allegations and there is no concrete evidence. There is not a single reference to the fact that a case has been registered against the petitioner in any police station.
Justice Bharti said that the personal liberty of a citizen cannot be curtailed on the basis of police statements contained in the file and the arrest warrant without any criminal proceedings being registered against the person.
The court asked that if there is no dispute against the petitioner, according to which law he was picked up and heard.
The court judgment states that the very reason for detention is a distorted reality that deserves serious notice. It does not clearly mention the complainant’s involvement in any registered crime. Otherwise, this fact would have been mentioned in the file of the Senior Superintendent of Police, Shopian, and in support of the arrest warrant issued by the District Magistrate, Shopian. However, it is clearly stated in the reason of detention by the District Magistrate that during the interrogation of the petitioner it was found that the petitioner was a cutter of active Lashkar-e-Taiba/HM terrorists – he was a Ground Worker (OGW). DM Shopian even stated that the petitioner was in touch with terrorists active in Shopian district.
He added: “Therefore, if the petitioner during the interrogation allegedly disclosed all the adverse facts against him… the District Magistrate Shopian should record under which legal authority the petitioner was first arrested under which the alleged interrogations were conducted for the purpose of making the alleged disclosures by the defendant in the reasons for detention.”
Justice Bharti said, “India is a democratic country governed by law. It is not appropriate for the police and the DM to claim that the citizen was picked up without a criminal complaint being registered against him and the alleged interrogation finding the petitioner to be in preventive custody.”
According to the order, “a DM working under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 or for that matter the Government of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is not expected to repeat his own version of the file and detention order.”
