Censuring the District Magistrate (DM) of Srinagar, the J&K High Court on Friday (February 27, 2026) directed the release of an accused booked under stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) and stated that “what is a casual for the DM is a causality to the fundamental right of the personal liberty”.
“The preventive detention order is fundamentally flawed and that is by the state of application of mind on the part of the District Magistrate, Srinagar, in scripting and signing the very detention order reflecting the pedantic level indulgence,” observed justice Rahul Bharti.
The court ordered the release of Muzaffar Farooq Mir, 36, a resident of Shahzadpora Dangerpora, B.K Pora, Budgam. “The petitioner [Mr. Farooq] is ordered to be restored to his personal liberty by his release from the concerned jail,” the court directed.
The court also highlighted an error where the earlier detention order was 2022 but was wrongly noted as 2024. Unhappy with the responses of the DM, Srinagar, Justice Bharti, observed: “What is a casual for the DM, Srinagar, is a causality to the fundamental right of the personal liberty of the petitioner.”
Justice Bharti held that “nothing can be more absurd than the inherent contradiction so obtaining in the grounds of the detention formulated by the DM, Srinagar”.
The accused has been in a Jammu jail under PSA since May, 2025. The dossier of the DM, Srinagar, accused Mr. Farooq of being “in constant touch with anti-national activities”. The dossier claimed that Mr. Farooq was “a hardcore active entity posing threat to educational institutions, business establishments and government offices”.
“Given [Mr. Farooq’s ideology], the return of normalcy to the Kashmir valley was reckoned to be getting resisted and that there was a consistent attempt by the petitioner’s ideology to destabilize the J&K through unlawful activities,” the DM’s dossier reads.
Published – February 28, 2026 02:22 pm IST
