Jammu and Kashmir HC orders release of separatist leader Masarat Alam Bhat

The Jammu and Kashmir High Court has quashed the detention order of separatist leader Masarat Alam Bhat and directed the administration to release him forthwith if he is not required in any other case.

A division bench of Justice Sanjeev Kumar and Justice Rajnesh Oswal issued the direction on Tuesday after noticing that the detention order against Bhat has outlived its life and the writ petition has become infructuous.

Bhat, who is the chairman of the separatist outfit Muslim League, had challenged a judgment of a single bench which had dismissed his plea against his 36th preventive detention order dated November 14, 2017, issued by District Magistrate Kupwara.

The single bench while pointing out that preventive detention is devised to afford protection to society had observed that the object was not to punish a man for having done something but to intercept before he does it and to prevent him from doing.

In his petition before the single bench, Bhat had submitted that "the authorities were relentlessly passing detention orders on the grounds that run afoul of the Constitution and the safeguards inbuilt in the preventive detention statute on the routine basis in blatant violation of the court orders".