JUDGMENT

07.05.2026 (ORAL)

01. Challenge in this petition has been thrown to detention order No. PITNDPS No.53/2025 dated 13.08.2025, issued by respondent No.2, vide which, petitioner came to be detained under Prevention of Illicit Traffic and Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1988 (PITNDPS) and lodged in Central Jail, Kot Bhalwal, Jammu.

02. Background facts of the case are that Senior Superintendent of Police, Kathua vide his communication dated 06.08.2025 submitted a dossier and connected documents in respect of the petitioner stating inter alia that district screening committee had examined case of the petitioner on the basis of various parameters and found his continuous illegal activities of drug peddling. The recommending authority elaborated following criminal cases against the petitioner:

03. On the basis of aforesaid recommendation, the detaining authority has come to conclude that petitioner poses a serious threat to the health and welfare of the people and therefore, with a view to prevent him from reoffending, it was necessary to detain him.

04. Petitioner is aggrieved of the impugned order of detention inter alia on the following grounds:

A. That the Preventive detention, as has been held in the cases of A.K. Gopalan V. State of Madras (1950) SCR 88 and Rekha Vs. State of Tamil Nade (AIR 2011 SCW 2262), is, by nature, repugnant to democratic ideas and an anathema to the rule of law. The Supreme Court in Rekha's case (supra) emphasized that article 22(3) (b) of the Constitution of India is to be read as an exception to article 21 of the Constitution of India and not allowed to nullify the right to personal liberty guaranteed under article 21. The Supreme Court further observed that since article 22(3)(b) of the Constitution of India permits preventive detention, we cannot hold it illegal but we must confine the power of preventive detention within very narrow limits, otherwise we will be taking away the great right to liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution of India which was won after long, arduous, historic struggles. It has, therefore, to be understood that if the ordinary law of the land (Indian Penal Code and other Penal statutes) can deal with a situation, recourse to a preventive detention law will be illegal. The Supreme Court added that it must be remembered that if, in the case of preventive detention, no offence is proved and there is no conviction, which can only be sanctioned by legal evidence, preventive detention is often described as "jurisdiction of suspicion." To prevent misuse of this potentially dangerous power the law of preventive detention has to be strictly construed and meticulous compliance with the procedural safeguards, however, technical, is, in our opinion, mandatory and vital. The Supreme Court, after putting reliance on the law laid down in Kamleshwar Ishwar Prasad Patel vs. Union of India and others (1995) 2 SCC 51 (para 49) observed that the history of liberty is the history of procedural safeguards. These procedural safeguards are required to be zealously watched and enforced by the Court and their rigor cannot be allowed to be diluted on the basis of the nature of alleged activities of the detenu. The Supreme Court quotes with approval the observation made in Ratan Singh Vs. State of Punjab and others 1981 (4) SCC, emphasizing the need to ensure that the constitutional and statutory safeguards available to a detenu are followed in letter and spirit. It observed, but the laws of preventive detention afford only a modicum of safeguards to persons detained under them, and if freedom and liberty are to have any meaning in our democratic set up, it is essential that at least those safeguards are not denied to the detenues. In the