IMPORTANT POINT : Preventive detention – Even one prejudicial act can be treated as sufficient for forming requisite satisfaction for detaining the person – It is not necessary that there should be multiplicity of grounds for making or sustaining order of detention.

JUDGMENT

M.A. Chowdhary, J. – District Magistrate, Pulwama – respondent no.2 herein (for brevity “detaining authority”), with the purpose of preventing petitioner Khawer Sultan Mir S/O Mohammad Sultan Mir R/O Drangbal Pampore District Pulwama (for short “detenu”) from acting in any manner prejudicial to the security of the State, vide Order No.21/DMP/PSA/21 dated 06.05.2021, placed detenu under preventive detention and directed his lodgement in Central Jail, Jammu. It is this order, of which petitioner is aggrieved and impugned it on the grounds mentioned in petition on hand.

2. The case set up in petition on hand is that detenu was arrested on 05.11.2020 by Police Station, Pampore, Pulwama and was lodged at Central Jail Srinagar for almost one year, implicated in case FIR No.86/2020 under Sections 18,20 and 38 UA (P) Act and FIR No. 90/2020 U/Ss 302,307,IPC, 7/27 Arms Act, 16,18,20, and 38 UA(P) Act and later shifted to Central Jail Jammu to be detained under Preventive Custody in terms of impugned order.

3. Counter affidavit has been filed by respondents, vehemently resisting the petition.

4. I have heard learned counsel for parties and considered the matter. I have gone through the detention record made available by counsel for respondents.

5. It would be apt to say that right of personal liberty is most precious right, guaranteed under the Constitution. It has been held to be transcendental, inalienable and available to a person in terms of the Constitution. A person is not to be deprived of his personal liberty, except in accordance with procedures established under law and the procedure as laid down in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, (1978 AIR SC 597), is to be just and fair. The personal liberty may be curtailed, where a person faces a criminal charge or is convicted of an offence and sentenced to imprisonment.

6. Where a person is facing trial on a criminal charge and is temporarily deprived of his personal liberty owing to criminal charge framed against him, he has an opportunity to defend himself and to be acquitted of the charge in case prosecution fails to bring home his guilt. Where such person is convicted of offence, he still has satisfaction of having been given adequate opportunity to contest the charge and also adduce evidence in his defence. However, framers of the Constitution have, by incorporating Article 22(5) in the Constitution, left room for detention of a person without a formal charge and trial and without such person held guilty of an offence and sentenced to imprisonment by a competent court. Its aim and object are to save the society from activities that are likely to deprive a large number of people of their right to life and personal liberty. In such a case it would be dangerous for the people at large, to wait and watch as by the time ordinary law is set into motion, the person having dangerous designs, would execute his plans, exposing general public to risk and causing massive damage to life and property. It is, for that reason, necessary to take preventive measures and prevent a person bent upon to perpetrate mischief from translating his ideas into action. Article 22(5) Constitution of India, therefore, leaves scope for enactment of preventive detention law.

7. The essential concept of preventive detention is that detention of a person is not to punish him for something he has done, but to prevent him from doing it. The basis of detention is satisfaction of the executive of a reasonable probability of likelihood of detenu acting in a manner similar to his past acts and preventing him by detention from doing the same. The Supreme Court in Haradhan Saha v. State of W.B. (1975) 3 SCC 198, was pleased to hold that a criminal conviction, on the other hand, is for an act already done, which can only be possible by a trial and legal evidence. There is no parallel between prosecution in a Court of law and a detention order under the Act. One is a punitive action and the other is a preventive act.