Owning ‘Anti-National’ Books Isn’t a Crime: J&K High Court
Case Title: Shafat Maqbool Wani (through paternal uncle) v. UT of J&K and Others
Case No.: HCP No. 312/2025
Coram: Justice Moksha Khajuria Kazmi
Court Observation
“The respondents have not shown any subversive activity against the name of petitioner/detenue which compelled them to take recourse to preventive detention. The alleged anti-national literature shown to have been seized from the detenue has also presumably weighed with the respondents to brand the detenue as an anti-national, however, the said literature has wrongly been attributed to the detenue having been authored by him.”
“The learned counsel for the petitioner is quite justified in submitting that the petitioner, being an academic scholar, is expected to be in possession of variety of literary means, therefore, a mere possession of the books with dispiriting titles does not ipso facto make the petitioner/detenue a criminal against whom the preventive detention was required to be invoked.”
“The respondents have reflected in the counter affidavit as also in the grounds of detention that the detenue had been granted bail, therefore, they have not been oblivious to this fact, however, at the same time, it can very safely be said that the detaining authority does not appear to have made any effort to derive satisfaction as regards the prejudicial activity of the petitioner/detenue warranting his preventive detention.”
“There has been non-application of mind on the part of the detaining authority in detaining the detenue.”
“The only thing that emerges from the perusal of the grounds of detention, and the counter affidavit… is that the detenue has inculcated a separatist ideology since his childhood, for, his father has been an ex militant having surrendered in the year 1990. The said fact by no stretch of imagination can be termed as a prejudicial activity attributed to the detenue.”
“The respondents have not shown any subversive activity against the name of petitioner/detenue which compelled them to take recourse to preventive detention.”
“The alleged anti-national literature shown to have been seized from the detenue has also presumably weighed with the respondents to brand the detenue as an anti-national, however, the said literature has wrongly been attributed to the detenue having been authored by him.”
