New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday sought responses from the Centre, the Jammu and Kashmir government, and others on a plea alleging that over 20 people, detained under public safety law, have been shifted out of the union territory prisons to jails in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Bela M Trivedi took note of the submissions of senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for the relatives of four detenues, that they have been shifted out of the jails in Jammu and Kashmir thus depriving their relatives the opportunities to meet them.
The senior lawyer said that people, detained under the local law, cannot be moved out of the Union territory as the statute was applicable to the Union territory only.
The detenues are in preventive detention under the provisions of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978.
The plea was filed by a woman named Raja Begum and three others through lawyer Satya Mitra.
Arif Ahmad Sheikh, son of Begum, a resident of Parimpora in Srinagar, was shifted to the central Jail in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. He was detained under the PSA on April 07.
