NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday said that an order of preventive detention cannot be sustained on “stale or illusory grounds” which have no nexus with past prejudicial activity.
“Preventive detention being drastic state action based only upon suspicion arising from a person’s past activity, can be allowed only if there is a live, causal link between a person’s past activities and the need for passing of a preventive detention order,” it said.
In the present case, the petitioner was put under detention under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange & Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 after a detention order was issued in January 2021 on the ground that he was allegedly “controlling a syndicate involved in effecting fraudulent deals”.
The court observed that while the detention order was passed in January, the last act which the petitioner undertook, and which may amount to prejudicial activity, was two years ago.