While law-and-order issue is one thing, a court has repeated distinction that the use of powers under legislation of preventive detention is only justifiable when there is a threat to public order; otherwise, the anticipatory arrest would be improper and would violate Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution since it infringes upon the freedom and liberty of a human. (SHAIK NAZNEEN v. THE STATE OF TELANGANA & ORS.)

The appeal against Telangana High Court’s March judgement dismissing the petition wife’s habeas corpus write petition contesting the order preventing her husband’s detention was being heard by a panel of Justices C. T. Ravikumar and Sudhanshu Dhulia.

According to the top court’s summary of the case’s facts, on October 28, 2021, the commissioner of police for Rachakonda Commissionerate issued a prevention detention order against the petitioner’s husband because Aimee had been involved in crimes involving theft of gold chains, majority of the victims were women. In states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, he has been carrying out this activity since year 2020.

As many as 36 gold chain theft offences included him. The detenu had previously organised a group with three other people to commit these crimes to get money quickly. According to the allegations, they arrived in Hyderabad by automobile and sought refuge in a resort. To commit the chain snatching offences, they would first perform surveillance of a few residential locations before lifting two-wheelers and motorbikes from such regions.

The apex court noted that even though the authority claimed detainee was engaged in more than 30 incidents, only four instances of chain snatching were used as justification for detention because the other crimes were said to be beyond the Commissioner’s purview and behind the proximity period.

The detention order also states that crimes were committed in broad daylight and have caused the creation of fear and panic in minds of the general public, especially women and the government had to intervene to “maintain public order.” The bench of Justices Ravikumar and Dhulia noted that in short, against detent F.I.Rs are primarily for an offence of “robbery” under section 392 of the IPC.

The bench was of the honest opinion that it was not appropriate to use preventive detention law to detain the petitioner in the current situation; “powers to be exercised under the Preventive Detention Law are exceptional powers which have been given to the government for its exercise in an exceptional situation as it strikes hard on the freedom and liberty of an individual, and thus cannot be exercised in a routinely adding distinction between “public order”, “law and order,” the Court cited the precedent set in Ram Manohar Lohia vs. the State of Bihar.

The bench granted an appeal, set aside detention orders from the Division Bench of High Court dated 28.10.2021 and 25.03.2022, and ordered that detainee be released quickly in case he is not needed in any other case, mentioning how the Supreme Court had to make an observation regarding the routine and unjustified use of the Preventive Detention Law in state of Telangana.