The detention under the Public Safety Act was declared illegal as the documents that formed its basis were not supplied to the detenu, the judge said.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — The Jammu and Kashmir High Court has quashed the detention of award-winning journalist Asif Sultan under the Public Safety Act (PSA) saying that the authorities did not follow the procedural requirements in letter and spirit while detaining him.
The Public Safety Act allows authorities to hold individuals in custody without trial for up to two years on grounds of national security and up to a year to maintain public order.
Quashing Sultan’s detention order, Justice Vinod Chatterji Koul directed the authorities to release him, currently lodged in the Agra Central Jail in Uttar Pradesh, unless he was required in any other case, reports reaching here said on Tuesday.
In 2019, Sultan received the annual John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award from the National Press Club of America.
Sultan, incarcerated since August 2018, was granted bail by a court in Srinagar on April 5, last year However, he was immediately taken in for questioning by the CIK (Counter-Insurgency Kashmir – a unit of Indian police), after which he was again detained under the PSA. He was shifted to the Kot Bhalwal jail of Jammu, but was later moved to the Agra jail. Before that, he remained lodged at Central Jail, Srinagar.
Justice Koul noted in his order passed on Monday that authorities appeared to have considered the case against Sultan under the anti-terror law detaining him under PSA.
However, the detention record does not show authorities having supplied Sultan the copies of the First Information Report (FIR) or the statements recorded under Section 161 of the criminal procedure, the court said.
These documents formed the basis of the detention of Sultan under PSA, the court added.
The lack of documents restricted Sultan from meaningfully exercising his right to representation against the detention order, the court said. “It is only after the detenu has all the said material available that he can make an effort to convince detaining authority and thereafter the government that their apprehensions vis-à-vis his activities are baseless and misplaced,” the court observed.
The order to release Sultan comes weeks after the Jammu and Kashmir High Court quashed the detention order of journalist Sajad Gul, held under the Public Safety Act since January 2022.
Similarly, the high court granted bail to Fahad Shah, the editor of the now-banned news website Kashmir Walla, for an article published in 2011.
