Karnataka High Court says that officials are passing flawed preventive detention orders despite guidelines

Bengaluru

The High Court of Karnataka has said that it is a matter of great concern that the officers of the State government are continuing to pass flawed preventive detention orders under the ‘Goonda Act’ despite a series of guidelines issued by the court to stop recur of simple mistakes, leading to release of detenu on technical grounds, in such detention orders.

“Unfortunately nothing seems to have changed” even though the verdict containing 13-point guidelines, issued by the court way back in 2019, was directed to be circulated to the Additional Chief, Home Department, the Principal Secretaries of the Department of Law and the Revenue; the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police, Secretary, Department of Parliamentary Affairs, and to all the Commissioners of Police, Deputy Commissioners of each district and Superintendents of Police, the court noted.

A Division Bench comprising Justice R. Devdas and Justice B. Puralidhara Pai made these observations while setting aside the preventive detention order passed by the Commissioner of Police, Hubballi-Dharwad on June 3, 2025, detaining Dawood Nadaf of Hubballi. His wife, Prathiba Talapati, had filed the petition challenging the detention order.

The detention order was passed under the provisions of the Karnataka Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Gamblers, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Slum Grabbers and Video or Audio Pirates Act, 1985 (commonly known as Goonda Act).

“Cyclostyled (preventive detention) orders are being passed by the detaining authorities. Illegible copies of the documents are furnished without translations,” the Bench said, while pointing out that one of the guidelines was to ensure that legible copies of documents are given to the detenu as the court in 2019 itself had noted that several detention orders were quashed for non-supply legible copies of documents along with detention order.

“Unfortunately, neither the government nor the authorities concerned have heeded to the directions issued by this court. What we see as a consequence of such failure is that similar grounds are raised in every writ petition challenging such detention orders, viz., supplying illegible copies to the detenu,” the Bench observed while pointing out that in the present case, the 185 pages were illegible among the 800-page documents given to the detenu along with the detention order.