Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Jan 10: High Court has quashed detention order passed by the Divisional Commissioner Kashmir against a drug peddler for executing it after a year and directed his release.
Justice Rahul Bharti took serious note of the authorities for executing the order of detention against a drug peddler after one year.
The petitioner, court said, was on bail meaning thereby he was in the regular attendance before the investigating agency and in a sense under the constructive custody of law and as such it should not have taken a year for the authorities to carry out the execution of the detention order against him.
“It is a pointer to the fact that passing of the detention order was taken for the pleasure of passing an order at the end of the detaining authority rather than with the actual purpose of preventing the person under the preventive detention so as to deprive and deny him the potential opportunities and occasion to indulge in the very same activities for which the preventive detention is aimed to ward off”, Justice Bharti recorded.
“If the haste for preventive detention was so present on account of his alleged complicity in FIR 103 of 2020 then the deferred execution of the preventive detention order meant as if the authorities thus were allowing the detenue to enjoy free run for a period of one year to carry on with his alleged activities for which he otherwise ought to have been under preventive custody without loss of time from the date of passing of the detention order,” it said.
“Thus, this court finds no justification to lend legitimacy, legality and validity to the impugned order of the Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir which is accordingly quashed and the detenue is directed to be released forthwith from his preventive custody by the Superintendent of the concerned jail provided the petitioner detenue is not required to remain in custody by reference to some other case pending”, Court directed.
The detention order under challenged against Zahid Khan passed by the Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir was passed on 27.2.2021 and remained unexecuted against the petitioner all along till 27.3.2022 when it was executed resulting in Khan getting under the preventive detention custody which was continuing as on date and for quashing of which the petitioner was before this court.
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