Allahabad High Court: The High Court dismissed a habeas corpus petition brought before it in a case of cow slaughter in front of a temple. The apprehension of disturbance of public order due to hurting of religious sentiments led to the arrest of the petitioner.
The Sub-Inspector of the area received information that the petitioner, along with a group of people, is slaughtering a cow or its progeny near a temple. On apprehension of communal riots, the police arrested three persons including the petitioner. The FIR was lodged under Sections 147, 148, 149 and 307 IPC and the order of detention was passed under Section 3(2) of the National Security Act.
It was stated by the Court that the question of application of mind in the detention order is to be decided by comparison of detention of detention order with the dossier of the sponsoring body. The various changes in the order at multiple places indicate application of mind. Regarding the question of discriminatory approach of the authority it has been stated that there is no parity amongst all the accused and detention depends on the satisfaction of subjective matter by the authority. These are individual cases and parity or lack thereof is not a determining factor to claim discrimination. The final question in the case was whether the act affected public order or law and order. It was conclusively determined that when the cow was slaughtered in a public place and in full public view, it leads to hurting of religious sentiments and incites communal tension. Hence it cannot be treated as a case of law and order only but also that of public order.
The Court further observed that the purpose of preventive detention is not to punish but to prevent. The main aim of this is to protect the public and the society at large and prevent the person from committing a crime which would disrupt public life. On all these grounds the petition was dismissed. [Wasi thru. Mohd. Rafi v. State of U.P., 2017 SCC OnLine All 1880, decided on 03.07.2017]