Jammu and Kashmir High Court quashes PSA detention of journalist Asif Sultan

The Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court recently quashed the preventive detention order passed under the Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) against Srinagar-based journalist Asif Sultan [Asif Sultan Saida versus Union Territory of J&K and Anr].Justice Vinod Chatterji Koul concluded that the procedural requirements were not followed and complied with by the respondent authorities in letter and spirit while detaining Sultan. Thus, the Court ordered his release.Sultan, a journalist with a now-closed monthly news magazine, was arrested in a case under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in 2018. Days after he was granted bail in the UAPA case by a Srinagar Court last year, he was booked under the PSA. In 2019, he was awarded the John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award by the American National Press Club..The Court said Sultan’s alleged involvement in the UAPA case appears to have weighed with the detaining authority while passing the preventive detention order against him.However, it noted that the detention record does not indicate that copies of the First Information Report (FIR) or the statements recorded under Section 161 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in connection with the investigation of the UAPA case, were ever supplied to him. The detention order was passed on the basis of these documents, which are of importance in the facts and circumstances of the preventive detention order, the Court said. .In this backdrop, the Court opined that Sultan could not have been expected to make meaningful exercise of his right to representation against the detention order. “It is only after 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.Justice Koul added that if the detenue is not supplied the material on which the detention order is based, he will not be in a position to make an effective representation against it. .The failure on the part of the detaining authority to supply the material renders the detention order illegal and unsustainable, the Court held.Finding that procedural requirements were not met in Sultan’s case, the Court quashed the detention order. It passed the following direction,“As a corollary, respondents are directed to set the detenu at liberty forthwith provided he is not required in any other case”.Last month, the High Court had quashed the preventive detention of Kashmiri journalist Sajad Ahmad Dar, also known as Sajad Gul. Similarly, the High Court also granted bail to journalist and editor Fahad Shah in a UAPA case against him in relation to the publishing an article on The Kashmir Walla news portal in 2011. .Advocate GN Shaheen represented petitioner Asif Sultan.Advocate Sajad Ashraf represented the State. [Read Judgment]