‘Liberty a cherished right’: Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court quashes 20-year-old’s preventive detention

“The arrests in general and the preventive detentions in particular are an exception to the most cherished fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 (protection of life and personal liberty) of the Constitution of India,” the court noted.

Case of detention order

• The petitioner challenged the detention order, dated May 22, 2025, which had been issued by the Rajouri district magistrate.
• The government defended the detention, branding the petitioner a “hardened criminal” and a “habitual trouble creator” involved in theft cases and narcotic trafficking alongside his brother.
• The authorities relied on two First Information Reports (FIRs) from 2024 and three General Diary (GD) entries from late 2024 and early 2025 to justify the detention as necessary for maintaining “public order”.
• Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Jagpaul Singh argued that that the detention was a colourable exercise of power, asserting that the allegations were generalised, unverified, and pertained to law and order issues rather than public order.
• He further argued that the detaining authority had “mechanically acted” on a police dossier without independent verification.

State’s stand

• The state argued that petitioner/detenue has a dangerous and aggressive nature, and is involved in repeated acts of theft and other illegal activities that disturb the public order and endanger the lives and property of local citizens.
• The authorities further submitted that the petitioner’s behaviour is becoming more serious, and the general public lives in constant fear of his criminal activities.
• They stated that his criminal and anti-social activities are creating a serious law and order problem in the entire district.
• They submitted that his actions have also become a major threat to public peace, safety, and security.

‘Non-application of mind’

• A ground is made out for interfering with the impugned detention order as the same suffers from patent illegality, misuse of power, and non-application of mind on the part of the detaining authority, the court stated.
• Although the petitioner’s criminal acts, which have culminated in the registration of two FIRs, amount to an infringement of law and order by falling within the definition of relevant offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC)/Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), yet the same do not imply disturbing the ‘social order’.
• The Rajouri Police Station has already filed a final report/challan in one of the FIRs, while the other FIR is reported to be under investigation.
• The said general dairy entries, without being substantiated/verified and being based on the alleged information, cannot be relied upon.

• The allegations under the two case FIRs and three general dairy entries, even if supposed to be true or proved at this stage, for argument’s sake, yet they cannot amount to activities prejudicial to social order.
• It was incumbent upon the detaining authority to address itself as to how the normal criminal law was inadequate to tackle the petitioner, who had been granted bail in the criminal cases registered against him.
• It is not the case of the respondents that the petitioner/detenue had violated the bail conditions, nor is it their stand that they assailed the bail orders but did not succeed.
• They bonafidely invoked the provisions of the Act to detain the petitioner with the view to preventing him from repeating his alleged illegal activities of illicit trafficking in drugs.
• Preventive detentions are made based on the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority in relation to an apprehended conduct of the detenue by considering his past activities, without being backed by an immediate complaint, as in the case of the registration of the FIR, and, as such, is a valuable trust in the hands of the trustees.