SRINAGAR: The Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has quashed the preventive detention of a 65-year-old Doda resident under the Public Safety Act (PSA), ruling that the authorities violated constitutional safeguards and failed to establish how the allegations against him posed a threat to public order.
Justice M A Chowdhary, in a judgment pronounced on October 6, allowed a habeas corpus petition filed by Din Mohd Wani, a resident of Shuryan in Doda district, through his son, Shahraz Hussain Wani, and set aside detention order No. PSA/02 of 2026 issued by the District Magistrate, Doda, on April 28, 2026.
The court directed that Wani be released forthwith if he was not required in any other case.
A key ground for quashing the detention was that the District Magistrate had failed to inform Wani of the time limit within which he could submit a representation seeking reconsideration and revocation of the detention order. The court held that this omission violated the constitutional safeguards governing preventive detention under Article 22(5) of the Constitution.
The court noted that the communication issued to Wani merely stated that he could submit a representation to the District Magistrate if he wished, without specifying the period within which he could exercise that right before the Government approved the detention order.
Justice Chowdhary observed that the detaining authority was required to communicate both the right to make a representation and the applicable time limit. The court held that this procedural defect alone rendered the detention order unsustainable.
The High Court also found that the grounds of detention substantially reproduced the police dossier, with only minor changes in wording. Relying on Supreme Court judgments in Jai Singh and others v State of Jammu and Kashmir and Rajesh Vashdev Adnani v State of Maharashtra, the court said such reproduction indicated non-application of mind by the detaining authority.
The detention had been ordered on the basis of two cases registered at Police Station Doda: FIR No. 0050/2026 under Sections 223 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, and FIR No. 0133/2025 under Section 299 of the BNS.
Three daily diary report entries dated February 25, February 27 and March 1, 2026, were also cited against Wani. However, the court noted that these entries had not resulted in separate criminal cases and did not specify any particular activity sufficient to justify preventive detention.
The authorities had argued that alleged bovine smuggling and cruelty to animals could hurt religious sentiments and potentially lead to communal disharmony. The court, however, found no specific incident on record demonstrating that the cases had triggered communal tension or disturbed public order.
It stressed that the detention order did not explain what law-and-order disturbance had occurred in connection with the cases, much less how the alleged conduct threatened public order. The court held that the allegations, without evidence of such consequences, could not justify depriving a person of liberty under the PSA.
Referring to its earlier judgments in Hamid Mohd v Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Reham Ali v Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the High Court reiterated that ordinary criminal allegations cannot, by themselves, be treated as grounds for preventive detention without material establishing a threat to public order.
The court accordingly allowed the petition and quashed the detention order dated April 28, 2026.
