Jammu and Kashmir High Court quashed detention of a man under Public Safety Act from north Kashmiri’s Baramulla district, who had been booked last year in July.
While quashing the detention order of Farooq Ahmad Bhat alias “Tawheedi”, the bench of justice Javed Iqbal Wani directed the government to release him immediately from preventive custody unless he was required in any other case.
Bhat was detained vide order dated 11.07.2020 passed by the District Magistrate Baramulla. He had challenged the order through advocate Syed Musaib in a habeas corpus petition.
“The law enjoins upon the detaining authority to be alive to all the facts and circumstances of the case and on application of mind to all those facts and circumstances, the detaining authority has to draw subjective satisfaction that the detention of the detenue becomes imperative,” the court said.
“In case all the facts are not brought to the notice of the detaining authority or that the detaining authority is not aware of all the facts and circumstances and without considering the same it derives subjective satisfaction to detain a person, the same would amount to non-application of mind on its part”.
The court said this while observing that there was no denial to the fact by the respondents (government) in the reply affidavit that the detenue stood released in all the FIRs. “Even the order of detention, grounds of detention, so much so the record does not anywhere reveal or suggest that the detaining authority was aware about the said fact,” the court said.