SC refuses Vaiko’s plea against Farooq Abdullah’s detention

The Supreme Court Monday disposed of Rajya Sabha MP Vaiko’s habeas corpus plea on the detention of Farooq Abdullah as the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister is booked under the Public Safety Act.

Asking Vaiko to challenge the order under PSA act before appropriate authority, the three-judge bench said the Rajya Sabha MP can file fresh plea to challenge the detention.

Vaiko, also general secretary of the MDMK party, in his petition, has claimed Abdullah is not being allowed to attend a seminar organised by him in Chennai.

Vaiko, who said he is a close friend of Abdullah for the past four decades, has contended that constitutional rights conferred on the National Conference leader had been deprived of on account of “illegal detention without any authority of law”.

Four days after Vaiko’s plea was filed, the J&K administration has slapped the stringent PSA on Abdullah, describing him as a “threat to public order”. Under this law, Abdullah may remain under
detention up to a year, if not more, at his Srinagar home which has now been designated a subsidiary jail.

Sources said Abdullah’s detention — he has been under house arrest since the August 5 announcement ending J&K’s special status — was brought under the PSA on September 15 and was ratified within hours by the advisory board which had weeks to confirm the government order.

In another matter, the SC referred batch of pleas related to the validity of Centre’s decisions on abrogation of Article 370 and restrictions on media and Valley to its Constitution bench, which has its first hearing tomorrow. A five-judge Constitution bench, headed by Justice N V Ramana will begin hearing petitions on October 1.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi referred the pleas, which also raised issues of alleged restrictions imposed on the movement of journalists in Kashmir as well as petitions claiming illegal detention of minors in the Valley, to its five-judge bench.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)