Srinagar: The Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh high court has quashed the detention of a man, Sabeer Ahmed, detained under Section 8 of the J&K Public Safety Act, 1978. He had been slapped with a case under the law for allegedly transporting bovines without official permission.Ahmed had challenged his detention in the high court through his brother, Mohd Sajid, who had filed a habeas corpus petition.The court held the detention order was unnecessary in Ahmed’s case and also observed that crucial constitutional provisions and norms were violated during the course of executing the order. The court of Justice M.A. Chowdhary notes in its order that his detention under the PSA could not be justified.“Merely because the petitioner is alleged to be involved in the offences relating to transportation of bovine animals without permission is not a sufficient ground to invoke the remedy of preventive detention, particularly where the detaining authority has not recorded any subjective satisfaction that such activities of the detainee have either resulted in or have the potential to lead to public outrage,” the court observed.While hearing the case, Justice Chowdhary stressed that preventive detention is an exceptional measure and cannot be used merely because a person is accused of committing an ordinary penal offence.The District Magistrate, Rajouri, had given the order for Ahmed’s detention under Section 8 of the PSA. The order was based on three FIRs registered against him. One of the FIRs invoked Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (PCA), 1960. The other two FIRs invoked Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 11 of the PCA.The allegation against that Ahmed is that he had transported bovine animals without obtaining the required permission from the district magistrate. The authorities alleged that he had violated a notification regulating the transportation of bovines. The district magistrate treated his repeated involvement in such cases as evidence of his “continuous criminal and anti-social activity” and concluded that his activities were prejudicial to maintaining public order.The government defended the detention order before the high court, arguing that Ahmed’s involvement in three cases showed a criminal propensity and disregard for the law. They also maintained that his activities had a direct impact on public order. The high court, however, rejected the argument.Justice Chowdhary relied on an earlier ruling by a Coordinate Bench in Bhupinder Kumar alias Pappu Krishan Lal v. UT of J&K (2025). That case had dealt with similar allegations concerning the transportation of bovine animals without permission. The court had held that the transportation did not automatically amount to bovine smuggling.The court had in this case held that a person transporting his own animals or animals he had purchased from one district to another without permission may have violated an order issued by a public authority. But that, by itself, cannot automatically be described as “bovine smuggling”. Such violations can be dealt with under the ordinary criminal law, it had observed.Constitution violatedIn his order pronounced on August 21, Justice Chowdhary said, “Ahmed was ordered to be detained in preventive custody, which was communicated to him on March 3, 2026. The communication also informed him he could make a representation against the detention order to the government, if he so desired. However, he was not informed whom to make such a representation to,” the court observed in its order. It noted:The constitutional guarantee of making a representation is meaningful only when the detenue is clearly informed of the authorities before whom such representation can be made and the earliest opportunity to exercise that right. Non-communication of this valuable constitutional right deprives the detenue of an effective opportunity to challenge the detention at the earliest stage, thereby vitiating the detention order. The same constitutes a violation of Article 22(5) of the constitution. Since the procedural safeguards governing preventive detention are mandatory and must be strictly complied with, such omission vitiates the detention order illegal and liable to be set aside.Article 22(5) provides a series of procedural safeguards for people held under preventive detention. The Supreme Court of India has held, including on August 7 in a separate case, that violating these norms can have a “fatal effect” on the detention order itself – meaning that it would be voided.‘Law and order’ is not ‘public order’The high court also reiterated the difference between “law and order” and “public order”, saying that the preventive detention provisions are meant for situations involving a higher degree of disturbance to public order. Justice Chowdhary’s order cites the following passage from Bhupinder Kumar:Public order is a form of development, which erupts due to public anger and is something beyond the failure of the law and order, therefore, without any such development, it cannot be stated that the detenue was a threat to the maintenance of public order, so as to attract his detention… Inthe detenue‟s case, no such instance or activity on his part has been shown that there was any problem of law and order even, the state had to tackle with, not to talk of public order.Referring to the warning in the earlier ruling that preventive detention was a serious invasion of personal liberty, the court said such orders must be reserved for exceptionally grave situations involving activities prejudicial to public order or national security.The earlier judgment had also emphasised that invocation of laws meant to presever public order involved situations beyond an ordinary breach of law and order. The state, it said, cannot resort to preventive detention instead of investigating and prosecuting alleged penal offences.Accordingly, Justice Chowdhary found that the material against Ahmed did not justify his preventive detention.The court also noted the absence of any specific satisfaction recorded by the district magistrate that the alleged activities had caused public outrage, or the potential to do so. “The impugned order of detention is, therefore, unsustainable in law on this ground,” the order said.Ahmed was ordered to be released immediately.