SC against NSA for penal offence

A preventive detention law like the National Security Act (NSA) cannot be invoked against a person accused of a penal offence as personal liberty was the most precious right given under the Constitution, the Supreme Court has said.

“An individual incident of an offence under the Indian Penal Code, however heinous, is insufficient to make out a case for issuance of an order of preventive detention,” a three-judge bench headed by Altmas Kabir said.

The court passed the significant ruling while quashing the detention order of Yumman Somendro, an alleged member of Manipur's banned organisation, Kanglei Yaol Kanna Lup.

Somendro was put under preventive detention by an order on January 31, 2011 after being accused of the murder of N Kunjabihari Singh, erstwhile Chairman of the Board of Secondary Education, Manipur. Singh was killed in his office room on January 11, 2011.

Allowing an appeal filed by Somendro’s wife Yumman Leima, the bench comprising Justices S S Nijjar and J Chelameswar noted that the detaining authority acted rather “casually”  in issuing the order of detention against Somendro and the High Court also missed the right to liberty as contained in the Constitution.