The Supreme Court has today issued notice to the Jammu and Kashmir government in a plea filed by the Senior Advocate and Jammu & Kashmir High Court Bar Association President Mian Abdul Qayoom challenging the High Court’s decision to uphold his preventive detention.
The bench comprising of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and BR Gavai while hearing the plea represented by Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave and Advocate Vrinda Grover via video conferencing has proceeded to issue a notice returnable in the first week after reopening of the Supreme Court. Further, the court also issued an interim direction for the provision of summer clothing and daily essentials to the Petitioner while in detention at Tihar Jail.
The 76-year-old Qayoom was detained on 5th August 2019, when the Centre announced the abrogation of Article 370 and has since remained under detention. He was shifted to a jail in Agra, where his health deteriorated after which he was brought to Delhi’s Tihar Jail.
In May this year, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had set aside Qayoom’s habeas corpus plea and upheld his detention under the controversial Public Safety Act (PSA). The Court had held that he has a tendency of disturbing law and order and thus it will not be appropriate to interfere with the impugned order of detention.
In its order, the High Court had referred to the argument of Advocate General DC Raina that the “ideology nourished and nurtured by the detainee cannot be confined or limited to time to qualify it to be called stale or fresh, unless the person concerned declares and establishes by conduct, and expression that he has shunned the ideology.”
