SAJID ALI Vs. STATE OF J&K AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner, Sajid All alias Sajid son of All Mohd. Malik resident of Mahore, was detained in preventive custody under section 8 of the Public Safety Act, 1978 (hereinafter for short referred to as "the Act") by District Magistrate, Jammu, vide his order No.02/PSA of 2004 dated 14/01/2004, in order to prevent the detenue from acting in any manner prejudicial to the security of the State. The detention of the petitioner was confirmed by the Government for a period of 24 months under section 17(1) of the Act, vide its order No.HOME/PBV/560 of 2004 dated 11-03-2004. The order of detention has been challenged by the petitioner on variety of grounds and are detailed hereunder.

(2.) To begin with, it is submitted that the detaining authority has not disclosed in the order as to what was the material provided to him, which formed the basis of its satisfaction for passing the order of detention against the petitioner and, thus, the order being without application of mind, is rendered invalid. That the detaining authority has not supplied all the material referred to and relied upon in the grounds of detention and thereby the petitioner is prejudiced to make an effective representation against the order of detention to the Government/Competent Authority. It was next contended by the petitioner that the grounds of detention have neither been supplied to him in the language understood by the petitioner nor its translated script so as to enable the petitioner to make representation against the detention order, which clearly means the non-observance of the mandatory provisions of section 18 of the Act. Even the mandate of Article 22(5) of the Constitution of India has been followed more in breach than compliance, as in the absence of the translated script of the grounds of detention in the language understood by the petitioner deprived him to make a meaningful representation against his detention.

(3.) Respondents in their counter repudiated the contention of the petitioner and submitted that the details of the anti-national and subversive activities, in which the detenue has been indulging given in the grounds of detention, were considered to be highly prejudicial to the security of the State, based on which the detention of the detenue in preventive custody was found necessary. The grounds of detention were duly served upon the detenue before the execution of the detention order and read over and explained to him in the language fully understood by him, as is indicated in the execution report. The case of the detenue was referred to the State Advisory Board and after securing its opinion, the detention order was confirmed on 11-03-2004, though on account of typographically mistake specified as 1-3-2003. It is also stated that at the time of passing of detention order, the detenue was under custody for the commission of offences specified in the grounds of detention, but in the event of being admitted to bail, likelihood of the detenue to again indulge in such activities could not be ruled out and in order to prevent him from such activities, the detention order was passed. It is contended, in the premises that there has been no violation of the procedural safeguards in the order of detention passed by the detaining authority against the detenue, as such, the same is legally valid.