The High Court of J&K and Ladakh Friday quashed the detention of a man from Shopian under the Public Safety Act (PSA), saying that he had nearly undergone the period he was booked for.
A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Kumar and Justice Muhammad Yousuf Wani quashed the detention of Ubaid Yousuf Kuttay while allowing his appeal against Single Judge’s decision dated November 8, 2025, which had dismissed his plea.
Kuttay had been detained in terms of a detention order dated September 12, 2024, issued by the District Magistrate, Shopian, under PSA on the ground of security of the State.
After examining the facts and legal circumstances of the case, the division bench allowed Kuttay’s appeal that he had filed through his counsel advocate B A Tak. In response to the appeal, the court set aside the single bench’s judgment.
“We are also of the opinion that it is not the number of acts that are determined for detention of an individual but it is the impact of the act which is material and determinative,” the division bench said.
It observed that the impugned detention order appeared to have been passed on vague, unverifiable and bald allegations unsupported with any evidence or material. “It is unsafe to consider such vague allegations as constituting a past act for deriving any inference about the future course of probable conduct on the part of detenue”. Quashing the detention order, the court directed that Kuttay, a resident of Chotipora, Shopian, be released from preventive detention provided he was not involved in any other case.
