Detaining authority would have failed in duty had it not acted: Punjab defends Amritpal Singh’s third detention
Taking a note of the submissions, the Bench fixed the matter for further hearing on February 2
The State of Punjab on Monday told the Punjab and Haryana High Court that there was absolutely no merit in Lok Sabha member Amritpal Singh’s petition challenging the third detention order dated April 17, either factually or legally. The reply submitted before the Bench headed by Chief Justice Sheel Nagu on the date of hearing itself was accepted with Rs 10,000 costs.
At the onset, Chief Justice Nagu questioned the “late” challenge to the detention order. “I am told they challenged it seven months after the order was passed,” the Chief Justice observed.
Responding senior advocate RS Cheema replied: “The court knows the procedure. There is a board… There was representation to the board…. They went to the Supreme Court where a matter was pending and the Supreme Court relegated”.
Cheema added the time factor was required to be taken into consideration not from the time the order was passed but when the matter was placed before the board. He added that the reply was to be filed by Saturday last but it was handed over today. He added they required time to go through the voluminous reply.
On the issue of costs for filing the reply on the date of hearing itself, Cheema suggested: “If the costs were to be imposed at the rate at which they spend our money on the advertisements, that would be ideal. The State spends on its self-advertisement a budget. If the costs are made commensurate to that, the country will benefit,” he added.
Taking a note of the submissions, the Bench fixed the matter for further hearing on February 2. Amritpal Singh’s petition was filed through counsel Arshdeep Singh Cheema, Imaan Singh Khara and Harjot Singh Mann.
The government, meanwhile, submitted in its para-wise response that the gravity and enormity of the grounds of detention, coupled with the petitioner’s conduct as reflected therein, fully justified the satisfaction of the detaining authority. It was added that the impugned order was fully in conformity with constitutional norms and values governing preventive detention, as well as the scheme and provisions of the National Security Act.
Describing the impugned detention order as “eminently constitutional, manifestly lawful and comprehensively valid,” the State said the court’s attention may be drawn to a hit list of persons prepared by the petitioner’s sympathizers/sympathizers of the Waris Punjab De group, with the intent and objective of physically eliminating those who had the potential to publicly expose the petitioner’s acts and misdeeds.
“Virtually not a word has been said by the petitioner in the writ petition regarding the hit list, which constitutes an essential part of the grounds of detention and repeated reference to which has been made by the detaining authority in the said grounds,” the State submitted.
“It is most humbly and respectfully submitted that the detaining authority would have been guilty of a grave dereliction of duty had it turned a blind eye to the situation and not decided to order the detention of the petitioner vide the impugned detention order. The State Government would also have been guilty of a grave dereliction of duty had it not approved the impugned order of detention,” it added. The State further submitted that the present grounds of detention dated April 17, 2025, are completely and manifestly different from the grounds of the petitioner’s first and second detention.
The Bench, on the previous date of hearing, had called for the original records forming the basis of Amritpal Singh’s preventive detention order.
The Bench headed by Chief Justice Sheel Nagu observed at the very onset that the Supreme Court, by order dated November 10, 2025, laid down an outer limit of six weeks for deciding the matter. But the petition challenging the preventive detention order dated April 17, 2025, was filed in December first week.
The Khadoor Sahib MP had challenged the legality of the third successive detention order issued against him, alleging absence of any credible material linking him with prejudicial activities. It was claimed that the detention was “arbitrary, void of jurisdiction and violative of constitutional safeguards under Articles 21 and 22”. It was submitted that Amritpal Singh had remained under preventive detention since April 2023 despite the absence of any supporting material for continued incarceration.
