SC seeks reply of J&K, Centre over detention of Soz

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Centre and the Jammu & Kashmir administration’s response to a petition challenging Congress leader Saifuddin Soz’s detention. Soz, 82, a former Union minister, was among hundreds of peop detained in August last year to prevent protests against the Centre’s move to divest Jammu & Kashmir of its special status.

Soz’s wife, Mumtaz-Un-Nisa, has filed the Habeas Corpus petition. A bench of justices Arun Mishra and Indira Banerjee, declined her lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s request for an early hearing of the case and posted the matter to be taken up next in July.Habeas Corpus pleas seek directives to the government to produce detainees in courts and to release them if the detentions are found to be illegal.

In her plea, Nisa said Soz was told he had been placed under house arrest on August 5 when he wanted to visit an ailing neighbour. It alleged Soz has not been provided with a copy of his detention. “Since August 5, the detenu [Soz] has been wrongfully detained and kept in house arrest for an indefinite period, grounds of which have neither been communicated to him, nor has a copy of the impugned detention order been furnished to him despite several requests over the course of ten months, which is in violation of the exercise of his fundamental rights,” the petition said.

Authorities last week revoked the Public Safety Act slapped on bureaucrat-turned-politician Shah Faesal and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leaders Sartaj Madani and Peer Mansoor, who were among the detainees.