Man profiled as ‘quasi terrorist’? Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court junks ‘illegal’ detention

From preventive action to detention

• The case traces back to March 21, 2025, when Mohd Saleem was taken into custody under the 1978 Act, following a detention order dated March 13, 2025, issued by the district magistrate, Kathua.
• The detention was based on a police dossier submitted on February 28, 2025, alleging that Saleem was involved in “anti-social/anti-national activities” and had links with terrorist organisations.
• However, the dossier itself relied primarily on preventive proceedings under Section 126 (security for keeping peace in other cases) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, along with a few Daily Diary Reports and statements recorded on February 1, 2025.
• Notably, no First Information Report (FIR) or substantive criminal case had been registered against Saleem.
• The plea, moved by his son before the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court, sought quashing of the detention order issued by the district magistrate, Kathua, arguing that it was illegal, arbitrary, and based on unfounded and concocted allegations, and demanded his immediate release from custody.

Detention extended, liberty deferred

• Following his arrest, the detention received official approval on March 20, 2025, and was confirmed after an Advisory Board review on April 7, 2025.
• The government extended his detention twice – on March 21, 2025, till September 20, 2025, and on September 21, 2025, till March 20, 2026.
• By the time the habeas corpus petition filed on October 7, 2025, came up for final hearing, the detention had effectively continued for a year, with further extension anticipated.
• The petitioner stated that the entire basis of his detention rests upon concoction without any factual basis, and termed the grounds of detention as imaginary and drawn from a colourable exercise of power by the authorities.

Court flags ‘concocted grounds’

• Justice Rahul Bharti found glaring inconsistencies in the state’s case.
• The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court observed, “Not even a single criminal act stands attributed to the petitioner rendering him liable to be booked in a criminal case.”
• The court said the dossier submitted by the senior superintendent of police, Kathua, gives the factual basis for seeking preventive detention of the petitioner by referring to proceedings under BNSS Section 126 and two daily diary reports, on the basis of which the petitioner’s profiling was that of a quasi terrorist, but without any overt or covert act of omission or commission amounting to any act of terrorism mentioned in the entire dossier.
• In fact, not even a single criminal act is attributed to the petitioner, making him liable to be booked in a criminal case before a criminal court of law, the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court said.
• It noted that even the preventive proceedings under BNSS were never taken to their logical conclusion, no final orders were passed to bind the petitioner to maintain peace.
• The court concluded that the state lacked sufficient grounds to proceed under regular preventive law and instead invoked the harsher PSA to detain the petitioner.

Failure of ‘subjective satisfaction’

• The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court also found fault with the district magistrate’s reasoning. Under the PSA, detention must be justified on grounds of threat to the “security of the State.”
• However, the court pointed out that the authority failed to establish any link between the petitioner’s alleged activities and actual threat to state security.
• Instead, the detention order vaguely referred to “criminal/anti-national activities,” which the court said do not meet the statutory threshold required under the PSA.

Detention declared illegal

• Summing up its findings, the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court ruled that the preventive detention order dated March 13, 2025, along with all subsequent approvals and extensions, was “illegal”, and therefore quashed.
• Criminal/anti-national activities do not even see a remote mention in Section 8 of PSA to order preventive detention of a person and, therefore, on this sole ground, the order of the petitioner’s detention can be quashed, the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court said.
• The high court set aside the detention order dated March 13, 2025, and directed that Saleem be released immediately. “The petitioner is directed to be restored to his personal liberty forthwith,” it ordered.
• The court also warned that any delay in release would be at the “risk and cost” of the district magistrate, Kathua.