Gauhati HC quashes NSA detention of Victor Das, orders immediate release
The Gauhati High Court ruled that the govt violated constitutional safeguards under Article 22(5) while detaining Victor Das under the NSA
File image of Gauhati High Court (Photo: @himantabiswa/X)
Guwahati, Feb 21: The Gauhati High Court quashed the order of detention of Victor Das under the National Security Act (NSA).
A division bench of the court on Friday ruled that the State Government “has miserably failed to provide constitutional guarantee to the petitioner, under Article 22(5) of the Constitution of India, while executing the process of detention of the petitioner in the instant case, clearly on two grounds, i.e., non-intimation of the petitioner’s right to make a representation before the Detaining Authority and unreasonable and unexplained delay in considering and disposal of the representations submitted by the petitioner before the State and Central Government respectively.”
The government had passed a detention order against Das on the ground that there was “credible evidence and confidential intelligence inputs that revealed that the petitioner had been actively involved in activities intended to create social unrest in the State by organizing mass protests under the pretext of seeking justice for the demise of Zubeen Garg.”
Hearing a writ petition filed by Das, the court observed that in the ‘Ground of Detention’ which was communicated to the petitioner there was no mention of the petitioner’s right for representation to the Detaining Authority.
“This valuable right of representation was not intimated to the petitioner, whereby vitiating the whole act of preventive detention of the petitioner,” the HC said.
Moreover, the representations of the petitioner were not disposed of expeditiously as expected under the law by the State and Central Governments.
“Every day of unexplained delay is prohibited in the case of preventive detention... As we have seen in the instant case, the State Government took 17 days to dispose of the representations submitted by the petitioner and no convincing explanation could be given by the State Government.
Therefore, such unexplained delay can obviously be termed as fatal and thereby, providing an indefeasible right of liberty to the petitioner,” the bench stated.
The court ordered the government to set Das at liberty immediately, if not otherwise wanted in any other case.
Das, who was arrested by city police in September last year, had been detained under NSA since October.
- Staff Reporter