Supreme Court seeks govt's response on shifting of detainees

New Delhi, March 13

The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday sought reply from the Central Government and the J&K administration on a petition alleging shifting of over 20 people, detained under the stringent Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978, from prisons in the UT to jails in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. A Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud posted the matter for further hearing after two weeks.

“These are the issues of genuine national security,” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said, adding he would seek instructions in the matter. The top court had on November 4 last year issued notice to the Centre and the UT administration on the petition.

The petitioners alleged that the detainees had been shifted out of the jails in Jammu and Kashmir, depriving their family members of opportunities to meet them.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Raja Begum and three others. Begum’s son Arif Ahmad Sheikh, a resident of Parimpora in Srinagar, was shifted to the Central Jail, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. He was detained under the Public Safety Act on April 7 last year.

The petitioner’s counsel contended that those detained under a local law couldn’t be moved out of Jammu and Kashmir as the statute was applicable to the Union Territory alone. The detenues were in preventive detention under the provisions of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978, he pointed out.