Jammu & Kashmir High Court – Srinagar Bench
Owais Farooq Lone Through His Father vs Union Territory Of J&K And Ors on 17 July, 2026
Author: Rahul Bharti
Bench: Rahul Bharti
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JAMMU & KASHMIR AND LADAKH
AT SRINAGAR
HCP No. 86/2025
Pronounced on: 17.07.2026
Owais Farooq Lone through his Father
...Petitioner(s)
Through: Mr. S. T. Hussain, Sr. Advocate with
Ms. Nida Nazir, Advocate
Vs.
Union Territory of J&K and Ors.
...Respondent(s)
Through: Mr. Mohsin. S. Qadiri, Sr. AAG with
Ms. Maha Majeed, Assisting Counsel
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 the documents
annexed therewith. Also examined the detention
record produced from the end of the respondents
relating to the petitioner’s detention.
3. The petitioner-Owais Farooq Lone, upon being
subjected to suffer preventive detention and getting
lodged in the District Jail, Poonch, came forward with
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the institution of the present writ petition acting
through his father Farooq Ahmad Lone, thereby
seeking this court to exercise habeas corpus
jurisdiction under article 226 of the Constitution of
India to order quashment of his preventive detention
custody and restoring him to his personal liberty.
4. The respondent No.2-District Magistrate,
Srinagar, acting on and in response to a dossier
submitted by the respondent No.3-Senior
Superintendent of Police, (SSP), Srinagar vide letter
No. LGL/Det/2025/14058-61 dated 28.04.2025, felt
convinced and satisfied that a case was made out for
curtailing the personal liberty of the petitioner and
ordering his confinement in order to prevent him from
acting in a manner prejudicial to the security of the
State by issuance of detention Order No.
DMS/PSA/09/2025 dated 29.04.2025 in exercise of
powers under section 8 of the J&K Public Safety Act,
1978.
5. From the dossier of the respondent No.3-Senior
Superintendent of Police, (SSP), Srinagar, the
respondent No.2-District Magistrate, Srinagar framed
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the grounds of detention on the basis whereof
subjective satisfaction was drawn to hold that the
petitioner’s reported state of activities were prejudicial
to the security of the State. In this regard, the
petitioner came to be referred in the grounds of
detention as a deeply influenced person by radical
ideology coming in contact with active terrorists and
OGWs of the banned outfit Hizbul Mujahideen (HM),
thereby motivating him to work as an Over Ground
Worker for providing logistic support. The petitioner
has been introduced to be a hard-core fundamentalist
and sympathizer of terrorists and also providing
logistic support by making a detailed survey of the
areas for carrying out terrorist acts upon security
forces and the present free roaming of the petitioner
necessitated his detention under the provisions of
preventive laws to prevent disturbance in the area.
6. The petitioner’s antecedent and involvement in
a criminal case under FIR No. 213 of 2018 of the
Police Station, Pattan came to be highlighted with the
petitioner being on bail in the said case but despite
being given many opportunities not mending his ways.
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The grounds of detention referred to purported fresh
inputs against the petitioner in terms of Beat Reports
dated 19.02.2024, 01.03.2024, 14.05.2024,
06.09.2024, 18.09.2024, 10.01.2025, 24.01.2025,
05.04.2025 and 25.04.2025.
7. It is by reference to the aforesaid alleged state
of activities of the petitioner that the petitioner came to
be reckoned as a person worthy of suffering preventive
detention custody.
8. Upon issuance of the detention warrant, its
execution came to be carried out by SI Shagoof Ahmad
of Police Station, Maisuma, who took the petitioner
into custody on 03.05.2025 but before handing him
over to the Superintendent, District Jail, Poonch
delivered 23 leaves compilation which were read over
in English and explained to the petitioner in
Urdu/Kashmiri which is said to have been fully
understood by the petitioner who was also apprised
about the right to make a representation to the
Government against the detention order.
9. By virtue of Government Order No. Home/PB-
V/796 of 2025 dated 06.05.2025, approval came to
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be granted to detention order No. DMS/PSA/09/2025
dated 29.04.2025, and the case was forwarded to the
Advisory Board for its opinion which report came
forward vide Opinion Report dated 21.05.2025
holding the petitioner’s preventive detention to be on
justifiable grounds and suffering from no procedural
misstep or lacuna.
10. Before the Advisory Board could come forward
with its opinion, the petitioner’s place of custody came
to be shifted from the District Jail, Poonch to the
District Jail, Karnal, Haryana vide Government Order
No. Home/PB-V/910 of 2025 dated 11.05.2025.
11. Acting on the basis of the Advisory Board’s
Opinion dated 21.05.2025, the confirmation of the
petitioner’s preventive detention custody came to take
place vide Government Order No. Home/PB-V/1075
of 2025 dated 02.06.2025 and the petitioner was
ordered to be kept in confinement in the District Jail,
Karnal Haryana for the first six month period w.e.f.
03.05.2025 to 02.11.2025.
12. The institution of this writ petition came to take
place on 06.05.2025 wherein the petitioner is
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assailing his preventive detention on the grounds as
set out in para 5 (I) to (XIV).
13. The petitioner assails that the preventive
detention imposed upon him is based upon grounds
which are vague and baseless against which no
effective representation was possible to be made from
the end of the petitioner. It is asserted that there are
no factual averments in the dossier as well as in the
grounds of detention by reference to which the
petitioner could be held to be indulgent in adverse
state of activities prejudicial to the security of the
State. The petitioner assails that reference to a
criminal case of 2018 is misplaced and misconceived
which by no stretch of imagination can have a live link
with the petitioner’s state of activities in the year 2025
or prior thereto so as to result in preventive detention
custody visiting upon him. The petitioner submits that
he was rendered disabled from making any
representation against his detention because of non-
cooperation by the Jail Authority of the District Jail,
Poonch.
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14. On the other hand, the respondents and in
particular respondent No. 2-District Magistrate,
Srinagar has come forward with a counter affidavit
filed on 25.11.2025 with averments contesting the
assertions of the petitioner and in the process
defending the preventive detention order so slapped
upon the petitioner.
15. When this court examines the grounds of
detention to find out as to what was the live basis for
the petitioner to suffer a case to be submitted by the
respondent No.3-Senior Superintendent of Police,
(SSP), Srinagar for preventive detention and which
came to prevail upon the respondent No.2-District
Magistrate, Srinagar, this court finds that it is only the
Beat Reports of 19.02.2024, 01.03.2024,
14.05.2024, 06.09.2024, 18.09.2024, 10.01.2025,
24.01.2025, 05.04.2025 and 25.04.2025.
16. The Beat reports by no stretch of reading and
reference are hinting towards the petitioner’s state of
activities to that extent and effect as came to be
portrayed in the dossier as well as in the grounds of
detention. The Beat Reports are only referring to the
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fact that the petitioner may disturb peace and order
without stating as to by resorting to what sort of acts
of omission or commission the petitioner was
intending to carry out disturbance of public peace and
order. The Beat Reports are as open-ended as
anything can be read into them. If the Beat Reports
being so submitted were of such a serious nature, then
why was the piling up of reports waited for without
first subjecting the petitioner to immediate security
proceedings under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha
Sanhita, 2023.
17. There is no whisper on the part of the
respondent No.2-District Magistrate, Srinagar as well
as on the part of the respondent No.3-Senior
Superintendent of Police, (SSP), Srinagar, to this
aspect and there is a studied omission on the part of
the District Police as well as the District Magistrate.
18. The fundamental right to personal liberty is
not a paper-thin right at the disposal of a citizen which
can be punctured by any pinprick at any point of time
by subjecting the petitioner to undergo loss of a day,
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week, month and year in the context of his personal
liberty by keeping him jailed.
19. Sine qua non of exercise of preventive detention
jurisdiction is the seriousness of a situation which has
to self speak through the contents of the dossier and
then through the grounds of detention. That
seriousness is found to be inverse in the present case
as both the dossier as well as the grounds of detention
are so non-serious that the petitioner, or for that
matter any other person in his place, would have no
occasion even to conceive, much less make an effective
representation against the preventive detention so
visiting upon him. If the petitioner was of the profile as
the dossier as well as the grounds of detention
represent him to be, then by reference to the Beat
Report of 19.02.2024, he must have carried out some
overt and covert act which ought to have immediately
put the District Police on a course of action to prevent
him from repeating the very same act on 01.03.2024
then on 14.05.2024 so on and so forth till the last
Beat Report coming on 25.04.2025. The purported
reference to the Beat Reports is nothing but sham
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references on the basis whereof preventive detention of
the petitioner could not have been asked for much less
granted.
20. In view of the aforesaid, this court holds
preventive detention custody of the petitioner illegal.
Accordingly, the detention order No.
DMS/PSA/09/2025 dated 29.04.2025 read with
approval/confirmation/ extension order(s) passed by
the Home Department, Government of Union Territory
of Jammu and Kashmir are hereby quashed.
21. The petitioner is directed to be released from
his preventive detention custody from the concerned
Jail wherever the petitioner is kept detained and the
Superintendent of the concerned Jail shall release the
petitioner forthwith.
22. The detention record being in photostat form
needs not be returned and is to be retained on the file.
23. Disposed of.
(RAHUL BHARTI)
JUDGE
SRINAGAR:
17.07.2026
“Manzoor”
Whether the judgment is speaking : Yes / No
Whether the judgment is reportable : Yes / No
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