After quashing his detention under Public Safety Act, the High Court has directed the government to release a detenue Assadullah Parray from preventive custody immediately if he was not required in any other case.
A bench of Justice Tashi Rabstan quashed detention of Parrayafter hearing his counsel advocate Mian Abdul Qayoom and the state’s counselSheikh Feroz Ahmad.
In his petition Parray had challenged the detention order issuedby District Magistrate Bandipora against him on 12 December 2018.
Advocate Qayoom drewattention of the court to the PSA detention orders (19.02.2016, 08.09.2016,27.05.2017 and 10.02.2018), which were quashed by the court after issuingorders in various petitions.
While quashing the detention of Parray, the courtobserved: “The authoritative judicialpronouncements on the subject are that even if the order of detention comes toan end either by revocation or by expiry of the period of detention, there mustbe fresh facts for passing a subsequent detention order”.
The court pointed out that when a detention order isquashed, the grounds of said detention order should not be taken intoconsideration either as a whole or in part even along with fresh grounds ofdetention for drawing requisite subjective satisfaction to pass a freshdetention orders. “Once the Court strikes down an earlier order by issuingrule, it nullifies the entire order,” it said.
Underscoring that an order of detention cannot be made afterconsidering previous grounds of detention, the court said if such grounds aretaken into consideration, the order of detention will be vitiated.
“It is of no consequence if further fresh facts, disclosedin the grounds of impugned detention order, have been considered,” the courtadded. “Detention order, impugned herein, is, thus,liable to be quashed as the grounds of detention made use of by respondent no.2( DC Bandipora) while passing earlier detention orders, subsequently quashed bythis Court, have been pressed into service while passing detention order inquestion,” the court said while quashing the detention order against Parray.