Preventive detention is an extraordinary power that must rest on “credible and proximate evidence” and cannot be justified on “past conduct or vague apprehension”, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has held while ordering the immediate release of a Hisar woman detained under the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (PITNDPS Act).

Allowing the petition filed by Babli, Justice Suvir Sehgal said: “Preventive detention is an extra ordinary power and has to be exercised sparingly, based on credible and proximate evidence of future criminal activities and not solely on the basis of the past conduct or vague apprehension.”

The court added that the State had failed to establish any “live as well as proximate link between the past conduct of the petition

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