The Supreme Court in the case Raja Begum And Ors. vs. UoI And Ors observed in a plea wherein it is alleged that certain detenues detained under the provisions of Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 had been shifted from local district and the central jails within Jammu and Kashmir to prisons in other States of the country, it has also been directed by the Supreme Court that the Union and the State of Jammu and Kashmir to place of their counter affidavits on record.
In the present case, the plea was filed by one Raja Begum, a resident of Srinagar’s Parimpora, wherein it has been stated that her son Arif Ahmad Sheikh was shifted to the Central Jail in Varanasi.
The bench comprising of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice PS Narasimha, and Justice JB Pardiwala was hearing the petition.
The bench stated that he (the detenue) has been released but the family had to come down and take him. These are daily wage workers. Thus, they took an immense pain and there must be some sort of confirmation. Therefore, they must be belonging to severely impoverished backgrounds and for them to keep travelling to visit their family members is impossible.
It has also been argued by the petitioner that as soon as detenues were moved to different states, all their rights are been lost by them. Thus, the family members of such detenues knew nothing of their whereabouts, once they had been moved and it has also been submitted before the court that since the detenues who being in question had been arrested under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978, which was only restricted to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, thus, they could not be moved to other prisons wherein across the country.
The bench headed by CJI DY Chandrachud remarked that it has been stated under original proviso to Section 10 of the Public Safety Act, 1978 that the detenues who being the permanent residents of the State and shall not be sent outside of the State. Then it has been deleted by the the Public Safety (Amendment) Act of 2010.
Accordingly, the court listed the matters after two weeks wherein directing the counter affidavits to be placed on record.
