New Delhi, April 9 (PTI): Personal liberty of an accused cannot be sacrificed on the altar of preventive detention merely because a person is implicated in a criminal proceeding, the Supreme Court has said as it quashed a Telangana government detention order against a man for allegedly duping hundreds of job aspirants.
The top court said that a mere apprehension of a breach of law and order is not sufficient to meet the standard of adversely affecting the "maintenance of public order".
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant accepted that the nature of the allegations against the detenu is grave, but observed that the detention order was passed under the Telangana Act of 1986 "without any application of mind".
"We accordingly allow the appeal and set aside the impugned judgment of the High Court dated January 25, 2022. The order of detention which has been passed against the detenu on May 19, 2021 shall accordingly stand quashed and set aside," the bench said.
The order of detention was challenged before the High Court which dismissed the petition on January 25, 2022.
In its recent order, the bench said, "The nature of the allegations against the detenu is grave. However, the personal liberty of an accused cannot be sacrificed on the altar of preventive detention merely because a person is implicated in a criminal proceeding. The powers of preventive detention are exceptional and even draconian."
It said that in this case, the apprehension of a disturbance to public order owing to a crime that was reported over seven months prior to the detention order has no basis in fact.
"The apprehension of an adverse impact to public order is a mere surmise of the detaining authority, especially when there have been no reports of unrest since the detenu was released on bail on January 8, 2021 and detained with effect from June 26, 2021," the bench said.
"Article 22 of the Constitution was specifically inserted and extensively debated in the Constituent Assembly to ensure that the exceptional powers of preventive detention do not devolve into a draconian and arbitrary exercise of state authority," it said.
"The case at hand is a clear example of non-application of mind to material circumstances having a bearing on the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority. The two FIRs which were registered against the detenu are capable of being dealt by the ordinary course of criminal law," the bench said.
The top court said that after the notice was issued by this Court, the state government has been served but no counter affidavit has been filed and it had declined to allow any further adjournment for filing a counter affidavit since a detailed and a comprehensive counter affidavit which was filed before the High Court was already on the record.
"The liberty of the citizen cannot be left to the lethargy of and the delays on the part of the state," the bench said, adding that before the High Court the state government has said that the detenu must move the Advisory Board and the writ petition has been filed in a premature fashion.
