The Bombay High Court has quashed a preventive detention order passed under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act (MPDA), holding that an assault carried out to dissuade a young man from continuing a love relationship, opposed by the family of the woman involved, did not amount to an act against public order and therefore could not justify detention under preventive laws. The division bench comprising Justice Ravindra Avachat and Justice Ajit Kadethankar examined the facts surrounding the detention of one Aditya Shailendra Mane, a resident of Solapur, and set aside the detention order on the ground that the alleged conduct constituted a purely individualistic act rather than an activity detrimental to public order as envisaged under the MPDA. The court observed that the incident involved Mane allegedly assisting a friend to assault a youth named Yash Landge on September 8, 2025, for maintaining a relationship with Gayatri Kamble, the sister of his friend, after her mother objected to their affair. The court noted that the act of assault in question arose solely from this interpersonal dispute and was not capable of disturbing public peace or order beyond the private sphere of the relationship in question. It differentiated between an act against “law and order”, which falls within the remit of ordinary criminal law, and an act affecting “public order”, which is the statutory threshold required to justify preventive detention, and held that the assault did not meet this higher threshold. The judges emphasized that a singular incident motivated by personal reasons cannot be treated as a threat to public order simply because it involved violence; the essence of public order lies in disturbances or threats that affect the community at large rather than individual disputes.
The bench also scrutinized the manner in which the detention order had been issued, observing that the police authorities had relied heavily on two in-camera statements indicating that Mane had been involved in the assault. However, the court pointed out that both statements were recorded while Mane was still in custody on the underlying criminal matter and before he was physically released on bail in that case. The court noted that the authorities had not challenged the bail order nor filed any application for its cancellation, and there was no allegation that the petitioner had engaged in any activity detrimental to public order after his release. In this context, the court remarked that obtaining in-camera statements while the petitioner remained in custody and before his release on bail did not substantiate a case for preventive detention, especially given the absence of any post-bail conduct that might indicate a threat to public order.
In scrutinizing the preventive detention order itself, the High Court noted that the impugned order was silent on why the act in question was placed within the ambit of preventive detention when there was no material to show that the petitioner’s conduct posed a real threat to public order. The court deprecated the practice of detaining individuals without adhering to proper procedural safeguards and without demonstrating the requisite link between the person’s actions and a threat to public order. The bench emphasized that the detention procedure is an extraordinary measure that should not be triggered by singular incidents of violence that are essentially personal in nature, and held that in the absence of material showing conduct harmful to public order, the order of detention ought not to have been issued. It emphasized that preventive detention cannot be used as a tool to keep a person incarcerated indirectly when ordinary criminal law remedies are available and when bail has been granted.
On this basis, the Bombay High Court allowed the writ petition, quashed and set aside the preventive detention order against Mane, and directed his release if he was not required in connection with any other offence. The court’s decision reaffirmed the constitutional and statutory safeguards around personal liberty, underscoring that preventive detention must be grounded in clear evidence of a threat to public order, and cannot be sustained on the basis of individual disputes or isolated violent acts arising out of personal relationships. The ruling highlighted the distinction between acts affecting law and order and those impacting public order, requiring authorities to demonstrate the latter before resorting to detention without trial under preventive laws.
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