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The habeas corpus petition filed by Soz’s wife,
Mumtazunnisa Soz, was heard by a bench of justices Arun Mishra and Indira
Banerjee, which declined a request by Soz’s counsel, Abhishek Manu Singhvi,
for an early hearing of the case. The bench posted the matter to be taken up
in the second week of July.
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New Delhi(Agencies): The
Supreme Court on Monday sought responses from the Central government and the
Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir to a petition challenging the detention
of Congress leader and former union minister Saifuddin Soz.
The habeas corpus petition filed
by Soz’s wife, Mumtazunnisa Soz, was heard by a bench of justices Arun Mishra
and Indira Banerjee, which declined a request by Soz’s counsel, Abhishek Manu
Singhvi, for an early hearing of the case. The bench posted the matter to be
taken up in the second week of July.
The term habeas corpus literally
translates as “produce the body”, and is a plea seeking a directive to the
government to produce a detainee in court and to release her or him if the
detention is found to be illegal.
Soz, an octogenarian, is a former
member of Parliament who represented Baramulla constituency in 1983. Since
then, he has been re-elected to Parliament numerous times and served as Union
minister for environment and forests during 1997-99, and as Union minister for
water resources during 2006-2009. He has also been president of the Jammu and
Kashmir Pradesh Congress committee.
Soz has been detained since
August 5, 2019, when the Central government nullified Article 370 of the
Constitution that conferred special status on Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated
the state into two union territories. Numerous mainstream and separatist
leaders were detained and the Kashmir Valley was placed in a state of lockdown.
Similar petitions were filed in
the Supreme Court in February, challenging the detention of People’s Democratic
Party (PDP) leader Mehbooba Mufti and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah,
both former chief ministers.
While Mufti’s detention was
challenged by her daughter Iltija Mufti, Abdullah’s detention was challenged by
his sister Sara Abdullah Pilot.
The plea by Mumtazusinna said Soz
had emerged from his house on August 5 last year with the intention to visit an
ailing neighbour. The guards of his property informed him that he could not go
out as he had been placed under house arrest.
“The guards further informed him that in the
intervening night, the concerned Station House Officer had visited the premises
and had passed on the instructions for keeping the detenu (Soz) under house
arrest, purportedly under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978,” the
petition said.
It was alleged Soz had not been
provided a copy of his detention order. He asked authorities and the guards at
his residence to provide the order but to no avail.
“The Jammu and Kashmir Police, refusing the
request, intimated the detenu that written orders have been received by the
concerned officers for implementation of the order, but a copy cannot be
provided to the detenu,” the petition said.
It said the non-supply of
material which is the basis of detention makes the order unconstitutional and
liable to be quashed.
“Since August 5, the detenu has been
wrongfully detained and kept in house arrest for an indefinite period, grounds
of which have neither been communicated to him, nor has a copy of the impugned
detention order been furnished to him despite several requests over the course
of ten months, which is in violation of the exercise of his fundamental
rights,” the petition said.
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