Amritpal Singh moves Punjab and Haryana High Court against detention orders

Chandigarh, July 19

Confined in Dibrugarh Central Jail, Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh on Friday moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking directions for quashing, among other things, “entire proceedings” initiated against him “under the National Security Act, including detention orders”.

Amritpal said his detention under the NSA is illegal and as such liable to be set aside. His right to life and liberty had been taken away completely in “an unusual and cruel manner by not only invoking the preventive detention Act for more than a year, but also by detaining him away from Punjab”, he said.

“It serves no purpose whatsoever except to punish the petitioner for being vocal against the state and the Central governments on major political issues, which is a democratic right of every citizen of this country,” he added.

“The grounds of detention are primarily based on social media posts uploaded by different persons across the world, which have hardly any impact in the state of Punjab and possibly the security of the state of India cannot be so fragile as to be impacted by social media posts.”

He said the Amritsar district magistrate could not pass any orders “with respect to the security of India under the provisions of the NSA and only the Central or state government could issue the same”.