Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh high court has quashed the Public Safety Act (PSA) detention of a Pulwama resident, saying that the mere claim of the use of an encrypted application or Virtual Private Network (VPN), or his contact with people allegedly associated with terrorist outfits, was not “an adequate basis for curtailing personal liberty through preventive detention”.A single bench of Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal, while hearing the petition filed by Ajaz Ahmad Seh, quashed his PSA under Order No. 34/DMP/PSA/2025, slapped by the district magistrate, Pulwama, on July 28, 2025, under Section 8 of the JK PSA Act, 1978. Seh filed the petition through his father.“The allegations, if supported by cogent material, are undoubtedly serious and warrant appropriate action in accordance with law,” Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal observed in his order on October 30.“However, what assumes significance is that the grounds of detention as placed before this court do not furnish adequate particulars of the alleged communication or activities,” said the court.The grounds of his detention mentioned in the police dossier alleged that Seh was in contact with Aashiq Ahmad Nengroo, said to be a terrorist handler associated with Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), a Pakistan-based terror outfit, through a specified phone number and the encrypted application Zangi, allegedly accessed through a secured VPN. Negroo was declared a terrorist by a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in South Kashmir’s Pulwama in 2024.“Mere assertion that the detenue used an encrypted application or a VPN, or remained in contact with persons alleged to be associated with terrorist organisations, cannot, without further particulars and relevant supporting material, furnish an adequate basis for curtailing personal liberty through preventive detention,” the court observed.The dossier further accused Seh of working as an Over Ground Worker (OGW), providing logistic support and passing information on the movement of armed force to terrorists, including Haris Nazir, a resident of Kachipora in Rajpora, Pulwama. It also accused him of mobilising local youth to join terrorist ranks.“If the investigating agency possessed material indicating that the detenue had used electronic communications to coordinate terrorist activities, transmitted information concerning security forces movements or provided assistance to members of a terrorist organisation, such material could have been examined and acted upon in accordance with the applicable criminal law,” court said.The court stated that the specific dates of the alleged communications or the nature and kind of the information purportedly exchanged or shared by him with the terrorists were missing.Examining the case, Justice Nagral stated that preventive detention is a precautionary measure and not a substitute for the ordinary criminal process. The court observed that the power of preventive detention, being an extraordinary invasion of personal liberty, must be exercised sparingly, cautiously and only in strict conformity with constitutional and statutory safeguards.“The authorities were not precluded from investigating the alleged activities, collecting electronic and other evidence, and initiating prosecution in accordance with law,” he said.Challenging the PSA detention, the petitioner, through his counsel, argued that the district magistrate had passed the impugned order on the basis of an undated police report without due application of mind. While hearing the petition, Justice Nargal said the formulation of detention grounds by the district magistrate “raises a legitimate concern regarding independent application of mind by the detaining authority”.According to the court, the comparison of the police dossier with the detention grounds “indicates substantial reproduction of the allegations put forward by the sponsoring agency”.“The statutory responsibility cannot be discharged by mechanically adopting the narrative supplied by the police,” Justice Nargal observed, ordering the authorities to release the detenue if he was not needed in any other lawful requirement for his custody.This is not the first time the high court has pulled up a district administration for slapping PSA without due application of mind.On October 22, the deputy commissioner Srinagar personally appeared before the Court, after a single bench of Justice Nargal had passed an order on October 15, seeking an explanation over what he had prima facie described as a detention order under PSA passed “recklessly and mechanically”, without due application of mind.Also, on October 3, Justice Rajnesh Oswal, another judge of the high court, quashed the PSA detention of Mashooq Ahmad Shah, a resident of Shopian, citing that the charges of anti-national activities against him were vague.On July 16, Justice Rahul Bharti set aside the preventive detention of Shafat Maqbool Wanio. The court, while quashing the preventive detention, mentioned that possessing literature with “dispiriting titles” banned by the administration does not, by itself, make a person a criminal to be booked under the stringent law.