Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Nov 22: The High Court has held that the Government has jurisdiction to prescribe the detention period while passing an order of detention under Public Safety Act (PSA) against anyone.
Accordingly, High Court dismissed the petition of one Aabid Majeed Sheikh challenging the PSA passed against him by the District Magistrate Pulwama on the ground that the detaining authority had no competence to prescribe the period of detention in the order.
The Senior Counsel S T Hussain challenged the PSA of Shiekh on the primary ground that the Government does not have competence to prescribe the period of detention after the abrogation of Article 370 as such the provisions contained in the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978, could not have been applied against the detenue.
Justice Sanjay Dhar while turning down his contention with regard to competence said the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act has been enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir in the year 1978 and after coming into force of the Jammu and Kashmir Re-organization Act, 2019, certain enactments legislated framed by the erstwhile State Legislature have been repealed whereas certain other legislations framed by the erstwhile State Legislature have been saved for their application to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
The court clarified that the Fifth Schedule of the J&K Re-organization Act gives the list of enactments which continue to remain in force in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Union Territory of Ladakh even after reorganization of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir and The Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978, is one of the enactments which finds mention in the said table. Therefore, the said Act continues to have application in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
“It is clear that both Parliament and State legislatures have plenary power to pass laws for preventive detention and ancillary to that power, the Parliament and the State legislature have power to fix the period of detention also. In these circumstances, the contention of the petitioner that the State legislature did not have power to fix the period of detention is misconceived and is, therefore, without any merit”, the court held and dismissed the plea with the reason there is no ground to interfere with the order of detention.
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