Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has set aside the Union government’s preventive detention order against a woman accused in multiple narcotics cases, stressing that such detention cannot be imposed solely on the apprehension of repetition of crime.
The court directed that she be released immediately from Hazaribagh Central Jail in Jharkhand. The division bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Reetobroto Kumar Mitra ruled that the detention violated constitutional safeguards of personal liberty and could not be sustained. A plea by the Union of India to stay the order was also rejected. The woman, identified as Jahanara Bibi alias Jahanara Begam alias Jahanara Mondal alias Janu, had been arrested in three separate cases since 2020. In each instance she was granted bail by competent courts, including the Calcutta High Court.
Despite the bail orders, the Union government issued a preventive detention order in September 2024 under the law aimed at curbing illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs, branding her a habitual offender and a threat to society. The order was not communicated to her until December 2024 and was executed only on January 18, 2025, when she was lodged in the Jharkhand jail after being initially refused admission on December 16, 2024.
The High Court observed that this unexplained delay “broke the live and proximate link” between the alleged threat posed by the detenue and the object of preventive detention. It further noted that the detaining authority’s reasoning was based on past allegations for which bail had already been granted, rather than any fresh material showing her release would endanger public order.
Holding that the order rested on mechanical reliance on police inputs and lacked independent application of mind, the court declared it unconstitutional. “Any order of detention, on the basis of allegation, prior to a conviction is nothing but an invasion of personal liberty,” the bench remarked.