Mian Abdul Qayoom to be released immediately: Centre informs SC
Jul 29, 2020
New Delhi [India], July 29 : The Central government on Wednesday submitted before the Supreme Court that senior advocate and Jammu and Kashmir Bar Association president Mian Abdul Qayoom will be released from detention immediately.
Qayoom was detained under Public Safety Act (PSA) on August 5 last year following the abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the government, told a bench of the apex court headed by Justice SK Kaul that Qayoom will be released immediately.
Justice Kaul, who belongs to Kashmir, said that "it is time to build roads for the future. Look for the future... Don't live in the past, look ahead." The bench also said that the government should make "all endeavours to bring complete normalcy" in the Union Territory.
Mehta also accepted the court's suggestion that Qayoom will remain in Delhi and not go to Kashmir till August 7 and he will also not issue any statement.
During the hearing, senior advocate Dushyant Dave appearing for Qayoom sought that Qayoom should be released tomorrow so that his family is here to receive him. Mehta agreed with Dave's submission.
Earlier, the government had told the Supreme Court that detention of Qayoom will not be extended after August 6, the day when his detention was set to expire. The bench had suggested that Qayoom be released on bail with conditions and asked Mehta to take instructions on its suggestion.
Qayoom has challenged in the apex court the Jammu and Kashmir High Court order upholding his detention under Public Safety Act (PSA).
The Jammu and Kashmir High Court had, on May 29, set aside Qayoom's habeas corpus plea and upheld his detention under the PSA. The High Court had, in its order, accepted the argument that the Qayoom should "declare and establish" by his conduct that he has "shunned his separatist ideology".
Qayoom was one of the many people who were detained in August 2019 after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India.
His plea in the Supreme Court said that when he was detained, he was taken to the prison in Agra without prior intimation, and was kept in solitary confinement during this time. It said that his detention order was upheld on the basis of four FIRs registered against Qayoom between 2008 and 2010.
"FIRs are stale, irrelevant and have no proximate, pertinent or live link to the present, and are thus superfluous and extraneous to the satisfaction required in law qua the tendency or propensity to act in a manner prejudicial to public order," the plea said.
