J&K HC dismisses plea challenging Bar body chief’s detention
SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir high court on Friday dismissed a petition challenging the detention of its bar association president Mian Abdul Qayoom under the Public Safety Act (PSA).
Qayoom’s detention under the PSA, which was to expire on Friday, has been extended by another three months.
“Justice Tashi Rabastan has dismissed the petition which had challenged the detention of Qay- oom in August. There has been no relief,” said his counsel Zafar Shah.
“A law of preventive detention is not invalid because it prescribed no objective standard for ordering preventive detention and leaves the matter to subjective satisfaction of the executive,” the court observed.
The court said the subjective satisfaction of a detaining authority to detain a person or not is not open to objective assessment by a court. “A court is not a proper forum to scrutinise the merits of administrative decision to detain a person. The court cannot substitute its own satisfaction for that of the authority concerned and decide whether its satisfaction was reasonable or proper, or whether in the circumstances of the matter, the person concerned should have been detained or not,” the judge observed.
Qayoom has been a renowned lawyer in Kashmir and has headed the bar association multiple times, latest being since 2018.
Qayoom’s nephew, Mian Mufaffar said that he was handed over another PSA order on Wednesday dated February 3, though his earlier detention order was expiring on February 7. “It is unfortunate that the petition was dismissed. His health is very grave. We don’t think he will survive another three months in jail,” he said.
Qayoom was detained from his house in Srinagar on August 5 ahead of the abrogation of Article 370.