‘Invoked recklessly’: MP HC quashes preventive detention of 2 brothers under NSA

Preventive detention was conceived as an extraordinary measure but has been rendered ordinary through “reckless invocation,” as if it were available in the ordinary course, the Madhya Pradesh high court said while quashing the detention of two brothers under the stringent National Security Act (NSA). It ordered their immediate release, holding that authorities showed complete non-application of mind by processing and approving the detentions within a day.

“Preventive detention, conceived as an extraordinary measure by the framers of our Constitution, has been rendered ordinary with its reckless invocation over the years as if it were available for use even in the ordinary course of proceedings,” the court’s Jabalpur bench said in the September 11 order uploaded on October 5.

It cited NSA Section 3(1) and said the government must arrive at a subjective satisfaction that a person categorised as a ‘goonda’ needs to be detained to prevent acts prejudicial to public order. “There is no requisite satisfaction recorded by the detaining authority that the detenus are a threat to public order. The haste with which the matter was processed in a single day took away independent exercise of mind,” said a bench of Justice Vivek Agarwal and Avanindra Kumar Singh.

The order came months after the Jabalpur collector ordered the detention of Rajendra Thakur and Rajesh Thakur on January 6 for three months, citing a threat to public order. Their detention was later extended under the NSA, which provides for imprisonment for up to 12 months without trial.

The bench noted that the brothers were named in 14 cases and had been acquitted in 11 of them when they were detained under the NSA. The remaining three cases related to obscene act, hurt and wrongful confinement, and hurling a crude bomb to cause unrest.

“This leads to a conclusion that correct facts were not placed before the competent authority,” the court said. It added that checking the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems would have revealed their actual criminal record.

The detention proposal from the Jabalpur police superintendent and the collector’s order were routed through four officials and cleared the same day.