Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, April 24: High Court upheld a detention order and quashed other two with the direction to the authorities to release the detenues.
Justice Mohammad Akram Chowdhary upheld the PSA of one Ahsan ul Haq Khanday of Sopore while as quashed the PSA of one Ghulam Hassan Malla of Lolab. Both were detained under the orders of District Magistrates of district Baramulla and Kupwara vide detention order dated 16.05.2024 and 01.05.2025 respectively.
The court while upholding the PSA of Khanday said that he was involved in five cases registered at Police Station, Sopore in terrorism related cases from the year 2009 to 2021 and was also detained earlier in the year 2019 under PSA.
It was alleged that despite of the above measures, petitioner continued to work for terrorists and Resistance Front, which were prejudicial to the maintenance of security of J&K, particularly being in touch with PaK terrorist handler Bilal Mir through Dark-Web Applications to promote terrorism in the general area of Sopore.
“The contention of stale grounds is, thus, not tenable and is liable to be rejected. Viewed from any angle, I do not find any illegality or impropriety in the impugned detention order. Hence, the present petition, being devoid of any merit, is dismissed along-with pending application(s) and the impugned detention order is upheld”, the court concluded.
Quashing the PSA of Malla, the court said the impugned detention order passed on vague grounds, verbatim copy of police dossier, and failure on the part of the detaining authority to record satisfaction that normal law proved insufficient to restrain the detenue and stale grounds with no live link between the alleged activities in the year 2013 and the detention order passed in the year 2025, is found liable to be quashed on these counts.
“As such, the present petition is allowed and the impugned detention order is set aside. As a result, the detenue namely Ghulam Hassan Malla is directed to be released from the custody forthwith, if not required in any other case”, the court directed.
Besides these two PSAs, the division bench of Chief Justice Arun Palli and Justice Rajnesh Oswal set aside the writ court judgment dated 22.08.2025 whereby the PSA of Shah was upheld.
Shah challenged the said judgment in an appeal and the division bench after examining the writ court verdict said the pivotal issue as noticed has been escaped by the consideration of the Writ Court.
The court after examination of the detention record which reveals that the representation dated 30.05.2024 submitted by the father of Shah on 09.06.2024 was rejected vide letter No. Home/PBV/395/2024/7483196 dated 02.07.2024, addressed by Deputy Secretary to Government, Home Department, to the District Magistrate, Anantnag, but there is no evidence on record that the detenue or his father was informed about the decision taken upon the said representation.
“We are of the considered view that the judgment impugned in this appeal is not sustainable in the eyes of law and accordingly, the same is set aside. Resultantly, the order of detention passed by the District Magistrate, Anantnag under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act is quashed”, DB directed.
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