New Delhi, May 29 (IANS): Octogenarian Congress leader Saifuddin Soz's wife has moved the Supreme Court challenging his house arrest since August 5 last year.
Mumtazunnisa Soz said ten months have passed since his first detention, and he is yet to be informed of his grounds of detention. She said her husband has always supported the Union of India and consistently upheld the constitutional principles, respect for the nation and vehemently opposed and separatist or anti-India voices in Jammu and Kashmir.
In the petition filed through advocate Sunil Fernandes, she said her husband's detention is wholly contrary and perverse to the constitutional safeguards laid down under Article 21 and 22 of the Constitution, as well as the law on preventive detention.
She insisted that her husband has consistently demonstrated an unwavering loyalty to the Constitution even in the face of separatist threats, and therefore cannot be considered by any stretch of imagination to be a threat to public safety.
"Not only does it attract the vice of unconstitutionality, it is also in stark contravention of the statutory scheme of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act'), under which the detention has purportedly been made," the plea said.
The petitioner urged the top court to issue a writ in the nature of habeas corpus or any other appropriate direction to the Centre to produce Soz, before the court.
The petitioner argued that her husband has not committed any breach of peace, neither has he disturbed the public tranquility, nor likely to do any wrongful act that may lead to breach of peace or cause any disturbance of public tranquility.
"However, Prof. Soz has been detained and put under house arrest since August of 2019 and the reasons for detention and arrest have never been informed till date, thereby making his detention not only illegal, malafide and unconstitutional, but also extremely appalling," she contended.
Detailing the reason to move the apex court, Soz's wife said grounds for arrest have not been furnished even till date, and he has been kept under detention for an indefinite period. "For someone who has been following constitutional methods for his entire long and storied career, cannot at this advanced stage, even be suspected of having any intention whatsoever to do anything against Constitutional values," said the petition.