Preventive detention is an exceptional measure meant for emergency situations and should not be used routinely as to punish a domicile.
- Ameena Begum Case, 2023: The Supreme Court held that preventive detention is an exceptional measure meant for emergencies and should not be used routinely.
- The objective of preventive detention is not to punish but to prevent anything prejudicial to the state’s security.
- The power of detention is a preventive measure. It does not partake in any manner of the nature of punishment. It is taken by way of precaution to prevent mischief to the community. Since every preventive measure is based on the principle that a person should be prevented from doing something which, if left free and unfettered, it is reasonably probable he would do, it must necessarily proceed in all cases, to some extent, on suspicion or anticipation as distinct from proof.
- In holding that the order of detention therein was grounded on stale grounds, the Court held that: “The detention order must be based on a reasonable prognosis of the future behavior of a person based on his past conduct in light of the surrounding circumstances. The live and proximate link that must exist between the past conduct of a person and the imperative need to detain him must be taken to have been snapped in this case. A detention order which is founded on stale incidents, must be regarded as an order of punishment for a crime, passed without a trial, though purporting to be an order of preventive detention. The essential concept of preventive detention is that the detention of a person is not to punish him for something he has done but to prevent him from doing it.”
In Ankul chandra Pradhan Case, 1997 : This case emphasied that the purpose of preventive detention is to prevent harm to the security of the state, rather than to impose punishment.
In the case of Mariappan v. The District Collector and Others held that the aim of detention and its laws is not to punish anyone but to stop certain crimes from being committed.
The word ‘preventive’ is different from ‘punitive’ as also been said by Lord Finley in the case of R. v. Halliday, that it is not punitive but a preventive measure.
In the case of Union of India v. Paul Nanickan and Anr, the Supreme Court stated that the purpose of the preventive detention isn’t to punish any person for doing something but to obstruct him before he does it and deter him from doing so. The reasoning for such detention is based on suspicion or reasonable possibility and not a criminal conviction, which can be justified only by valid proof.