While hearing the case ‘Pramod Singla v. UOI & Ors.’, the Supreme Court ruled that “preventive detention laws in India are a colonial legacy, and as such, are extremely powerful laws that have the ability to confer arbitrary power to the state”. In order to avoid “unfettered discretion of power” by the government, the court “must analyse cases arising from such laws with extreme caution and excruciating detail”. This is not the first time that the court has come up with such an observation. It has been making such iterations time and again, but to little avail. Preventive detention refers to taking into custody an individual who has not committed a crime yet but detaining agencies are convinced that he/she could commit one in the immediate future. In India, there are various laws — including Prevention of Black-marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act; Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA); and National Security Act — that fall under this category. Apart from preventive detention laws, there are special legislations like Unlawful Activities Prevention Act that, too, allow prolonged detention without adequate trials. The use and misuse of such laws have created an ambience that can be said to be averse to individual and civil liberties. Procedural lacunae in cases related to preventive detention have been leading to prolonged detention of individuals. The real irony is that in most of the cases, the detention order gets set aside by the judiciary, but not before the detenue has already served a substantial part of the detention period. The process itself becomes a punishment. While the ideal thing would be that detaining agencies understand the essence of the preventive detention laws and avoid its misuse, it might be too much to ask from them. Under the Constitution, detaining agencies are aptly conferred a degree of discretion to take action under preventive detention laws. While that discretion has to be maintained to ensure the effectiveness and relevance of such laws, there also has to be certain checks to balance public order, law-and-order and security of the state on one hand with personal and civil liberties on the other. The Indian judiciary may have to play a big role in ensuring this balance. In the case in question, the Supreme Court noted that “the Courts, in circumstances of preventive detention, are conferred with the duty that has been given the utmost importance by the Constitution, which is the protection of individual and civil liberties.” Presently, the courts examine predominantly the procedural lapses in detaining the individual. Article 22 of the Indian Constitution lays down procedural safeguards for application of preventive detention. The very validity of preventive detention laws is premised on the condition that the safeguards guaranteed under Article 22(5) are adhered to. For instance, in the particular case in question, the court ruled that the “illegible” document provided to the detenue by detaining agencies “violates the principles under Article 22(5) of the Constitution of India, where the detaining authority must explain the grounds of detention in a language understood by the detenue.” Furthermore, while clarifying certain apparent dichotomies relating to the disposal of representation given by the detenue, the court also emphasised on speeding up the process by avoiding delay. The iterations made by the apex court are indeed reassuring, but given the widespread irregularities in the larger trend of preventive detention, the court must look forward to expanding the ambit of scrutiny in a more subjective manner. It can go beyond examining procedural lapses to ascertain the legitimacy of particular detentions, or at least propose a mechanism for the same. Scrutiny of the grounds under which detentions are made has also become a necessity. As was succinctly put by Justice Hidayatullah: “One has to imagine three concentric circles. Law and order represent the largest circle within which is the next circle representing public order and the smallest circle represents security of state. It is then easy to see that an act may affect law and order but not public order just as an act might affect public order but not security of state.” These distinctions need to be streamlined, and the judiciary has to play the role of an anchor in doing so.