Jammu & Kashmir High Court – Srinagar Bench
Aqib Mushtaq Lone vs Union Territory Of J&K And Ors on 13 July, 2026
Author: Rahul Bharti
Bench: Rahul Bharti
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JAMMU & KASHMIR AND LADAKH
AT SRINAGAR
HCP No. 111/2025
Pronounced on: 13.07.2026
Aqib Mushtaq Lone
...Petitioner(s)
Through: Mr. Wajid Mohammad Haseeb, Advocate
Vs.
Union Territory of J&K and Ors.
...Respondent(s)
Through: Mr. Bikram Deep Singh, Dy. AG
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAHUL BHARTI, JUDGE
JUDGMENT
1. Heard learned counsel for the petitioner as well
as learned counsel for the respondents.
2. Perused the writ pleadings and documents
annexed therewith. Also examined the detention
record produced from the end of the respondents
relating to the petitioner’s detention.
3. With a grievance that the preventive detention
custody imposed against him is arbitrary and illegal,
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the petitioner-Aqib Mushtaq Lone, acting through his
father Mushtaq Ahmad Lone, came up with institution
of present writ petition on 15.05.2025 seeking
restoration of his personal liberty to be granted by this
court by issuance of a writ of habeas corpus.
4. The situation preceding to present second time
preventive detention of the petitioner is that the
respondent No.3-Senior Superintendent of Police,
(SSP), Shopian had prepared a dossier No. CS/D-
1/2022/6695 dated 24.08.2022 submitted to the
respondent No.2-District Magistrate, Shopian for
effecting preventive detention of the petitioner under
J&K Public Safety Act, 1978.
5. In the dossier, the petitioner came to be
projected and profiled in two shades.
6. One shade by reference to his criminal
antecedents in terms of his involvement in criminal
cases borne out of FIR No. 14 of 2022 registered by
the Police Station, Zainapora for alleged commission of
offences under Section 18 & 39 of Unlawful Activities
(Prevention) Act, 1967 and FIR No. 15 of 2022 of
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Police Station, Zainapora for offences under section
307 IPC read with section 7/27 Arms Act, 1959 and
sections 16/19/20/38 Unlawful Activities (Prevention)
Act, 1967.
7. The other shade of the petitioner’s profile being
that the petitioner is arrested by secessionist ideology
for serving which the petitioner is said to be involved
in misguiding the youth to join militancy and himself
being an active OGW of a terrorist namely Abdul
Qayoom Dar of LET outfit, who was killed in anti-
militancy operation conducted in village Cheermarg
Zainapora, Shopian on 19.02.2022. As an OGW, the
petitioner is said to be providing along with others all
necessary support like guiding the militant movements
through safe passages, carrying their weapons from
one place to another, providing of transport facility as
and when required so on so forth. Thus, in order to
keep a cap on the alleged state of activities of the
petitioner, the petitioner was recommended to be
subjected to preventive detention custody by the
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respondent No.3-Senior Superintendent of Police,
(SSP), Shopian.
8. Acting upon the said dossier, the respondent
No.2-District Magistrate, Shopian had come forward
with the word to word reproduction of the dossier to
formulate grounds of detention thereby drawing a
subjective satisfaction that a case for preventive
detention of the petitioner was made out resulting in
issuance of detention order No. 148/DMS/PSA/2022
dated 25.08.2022 declaring petitioner’s state of
activities being prejudicial to the security of the State
(UT) requiring his preventive detention and
confinement in District Jail, Baramulla.
9. The petitioner came to serve full two years term
of his first preventive detention custody
notwithstanding the fact that he had questioned it in a
writ petition WP(Crl) No. 644/2022 which by efflux of
time was rendered infructuous on account of the
petitioner having served full two years detention
custody w.e.f. 30.08.2022.
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10. By following the same route of a dossier against
the petitioner with the repeat of the same narrative as
set out in the aforesaid first dossier, the respondent
No.3-Senior Superintendent of Police, (SSP), Shopian
by virtue of a dossier No. PSA-Cell/ SPN/ 2025/
20513-15 dated 02.05.2025 again recommended
slapping of a preventive detention custody upon the
petitioner which came to be obliged readily by the
respondent No.2-District Magistrate, Shopian by
formulating purported grounds of detention and on
that basis passing detention order No. 10/DMS/PSA
of 2025 dated 03.05.2025.
11. The preventive detention order came to be
approved by the Home Department, Government of UT
of J&K by issuance of a Government Order No.
Home/PB-V/850 of 2025 dated 08.05.2025 after the
petitioner had come to be taken into custody on
06.05.2025 with the detention warrant executed by
Inspector Showkat Ahmad of District Police Line,
Shopian, who is said to have carried out due
compliance of the directions as well as procedure and
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not only handing over to the petitioner a 22 leaves
compilation of documents containing detention order,
grounds of detention, notice of detention and dossier
but also reading over the same in English language
and explaining it to the petitioner in Urdu/Kashmiri
understood by the petitioner fully. The petitioner also
came to be apprised of his right to make a
representation against his detention order to the
detention making authority as well as to the
Government.
12. On behalf of the petitioner, his father Mushtaq
Ahmad Lone, addressed a representation dated
09.05.2025 to the respondent No.2-District
Magistrate, Shopian thereby seeking revocation of the
petitioner’s detention and said representation was duly
acknowledged to have been received by ARA of District
Magistrate Shopian’s Office.
13. The petitioner’s case was forwarded to the
Advisory Board which came up with its Opinion Report
dated 26.05.2025 stating therein that there was a
HCP No. 111/2025 Page 6 of 12
justifiable basis for subjecting the petitioner to
preventive detention.
14. On the basis of the recommendation so made
by the Advisory Board, the confirmation of the
petitioner’s detention came to take place with the
issuance of Government Order No. Home/PB-V/1099
of 2025 dated 03.06.2025 by prescribing first phase
of petitioner’s preventive detention custody for a period
of six months w.e.f. 06.05.2025 till 05.11.2025 to
remain lodged in the Central Jail Kot Bhalwal,
Jammu.
15. The said representation of the petitioner so
submitted was forwarded by the respondent No.2-
District Magistrate, Shopian to the Principal Secretary
to Government Home Department UT of J&K by virtue
of a communication No. DMS/ARA/2025/107 dated
13.06.2025. In this communication, the respondent
No.2-District Magistrate, Shopian is on record saying
that the representation was received after confirmation
order No. Home/PB-V/850 of 2025 dated
08.05.2025 and, as such, was being forwarded from
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his end to the end of Home Department to Government
of UT of J&K.
16. The petitioner has come forward assailing his
preventive detention on a number of grounds as set
out in para 3 (i) to (xiv).
17. The respondents, on the other hand, through
respondent No.2-the District Magistrate, Shopian have
come forward with a counter affidavit to the writ
petition defending the preventive detention imposed
upon the petitioner by insisting that all the procedural
compliances were meticulously carried out and
defending the cause for slapping preventive detention
upon the petitioner.
18. This case should not tax this court to refer to
the grounds of challenge as set out in the writ petition
and the response thereto by the respondents as there
is a fundamental flaw which is so patent on the record
that the fate of this writ petition of the petitioner
cannot be otherwise than that of being allowed and
setting the petitioner free to his personal liberty.
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19. It is a settled position of law that before the
consideration of the Advisory Board taking place in the
form of its Opinion Report of a representation from a
detenu’s end comes to be in the hands of the detention
order making authority or of the Government as the
case may be, then the said representation needs to
accompany the case file forwarded to the Advisory
Board for its opinion so as to enable an Advisory Board
a complete conspectus of the case before coming up
with its opinion be it for or against the slapping of
preventive detention custody upon a detenu.
20. In the present case, the Advisory Board
tendered its opinion on 26.05.2025 whereas the
representation from the end of the petitioner was in
the hands of respondent No.2-the District Magistrate,
Shopian on 09.05.2025 and still that representation
in cause was never ever forwarded from the end of the
respondent No.2-the District Magistrate, Shopain or
for that matter by the Home Department, Government
of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir to the
Advisory Board for its consideration for the reasons
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which are not forthcoming from the detention record
produced for the perusal of this Court.
21. In fact, this Court is surprised to come across
the mindset of respondent No.2-the District
Magistrate, Shopian, who in his communication No.
DMS/ARA/2025/107 dated 13.06.2025 addressed to
Principal Secretary to Government, Home Department
J&K in the context of forwarding of the petitioner’s
representation is on record saying that the petitioner’s
representation was received after the confirmation
order passed by the Advisory Board vide Government
Order No. Home/PB-V/850 of 2025 dated
08.05.2025 which is quite a misplaced fact by its own
reference as there is no such order No. Home/PB-
V/850 of 2025 dated 08.05.2025 by the Advisory
Board, and rather it is a Government Order whereby
approval and not confirmation was granted to the
detention order No.10/DMS/PSA of 2025 dated
03.05.2025.
22. Thus, wherefrom respondent No.2-the District
Magistrate, Shopian was apprising the Principal
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Secretary to Government, Home Department, Union
Territory of J&K about the Advisory Board’s said order
is again a matter of suspense known only to
respondent No.2-the District Magistrate, Shopian, but
the fact remains that the representation was very
much available to be forwarded to the Advisory Board
for its consideration but the same was kept withheld
from being so forwarded which has resulted in a
manifest failure of procedural compliances at the end
of the respondent No.2-the District Magistrate,
Shopian as well as of the Home Department,
Government of Union Territory of J&K, rendering the
preventive detention of the petitioner seriously flawed,
if not originally, but in the course of the process
whereby legitimacy is earned by preventive detention
custody effected against a given detenu.
23. In the light of the aforesaid serious flaw, this
Court finds that the preventive detention of the
petitioner is afflicted with an illegality which renders
the very exercise a nullity.
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24. Accordingly, the detention order No.
10/DMS/PSA of 2025 dated 03.05.2025 passed by
the respondent No.2-the District Magistrate, Shopian
read with approval/confirmation/extension order(s)
passed by the respondent No.1 related to the petitioner
are hereby quashed.
25. The petitioner is directed to be restored to his
personal liberty by his release from the concerned Jail
wherever he is kept confined and to said effect, the
Superintendent concerned Jail to act in compliance by
release of the petitioner from the Jail custody.
26. The detention record being in photostat form
needs not be returned and is to be retained on the file.
27. Disposed of.
(RAHUL BHARTI)
JUDGE
SRINAGAR:
13.07.2026
“Manzoor”
Whether the judgment is speaking : Yes / No
Whether the judgment is reportable : Yes / No
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