Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir High Court has quashed detention order under Public Safety Act against youth from south Kashmir’s Anantnag and ordered government to release him if not required in any other case.
A bench of Justice M K Hanjura passed the orders after hearing advocate Wajid Haseeb, the counsel representing the detainee, Irfan Ahmad Khan son of Bashir Ahmad Khan of Laizbal Anantnag,
Irfan Ahmad Khan alias ‘Irfan Petrol’ was ordered to be detained under PSA vide an order (No. 12/DMA/PSA/DET/2017) on 9 August last year by District Magistrate, Anantnag, in exercise of the powers conferred in him under clause (a) of Section 8 of the J&K Public Safety Act, the legislation described by amnesty international as “lawless law”.
Irfan had challenged the order of detention, chiefly, on the ground that district magistrate has failed to apply mind to the fact whether his preventive detention was imperative, notwithstanding his custody in a substantive offence. Iran had filed a bail application in case FIR No. 92/2017, registered at Police Station, Achabal, Anantnag, which was allowed, but despite that, he was not released from the custody in the FIR and subsequently booked under the PSA.