Mehraj Malik, Aam Aadmi Party MLA from Doda, Jammu and Kashmir, was released from Kathua Jail on Tuesday after the Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court quashed his detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA). The order, delivered by Justice Mohd Yusuf Wani, found that the State had invoked preventive detention in a case that did not meet the legal threshold to justify the detention order.The court said that “the power of the authorities under the preventive detention laws cannot be allowed to be misused for any reasons beyond the scope of the special legislation”. Such powers, it said, must be exercised with caution. “Since the preventive detention snaps the right of liberty being the most precious human right… the same needs to be invoked in justified circumstances where the recourse to normal criminal law… is genuinely felt inadequate.”Here’s what to know about the case concerning the detention of the AAP MLA and what the court said while ordering his release.Malik was detained in September 2025 on the ground that his activities were “prejudicial to public order”. The detention followed a dispute over the relocation of a primary health centre in Doda. Malik had opposed the move, saying in a representation to the Deputy Commissioner that “no such shifting be done without ascertaining the views of the local population, as the public wanted the Health Centre to continue at its original position”.Despite this, the administration proceeded with the relocation. Malik later took to Facebook Live to criticise the decision and express his displeasure with the administration and the Deputy Commissioner. Also read | First legislator detained under PSA, who is AAP’s lone J&K MLA Mehraj Malik?The detention order itself relied on multiple first information reports (FIRs) from 2014 to 2025 and daily diary reports (DDRs) that were registered across police stations in Doda. The court found that these materials did not justify the invoking of the preventive detention order against Malik, as DDRs are preliminary police records that cannot qualify as formal FIRs.What the law statesMalik was detained under Section 8 of the PSA, which states that the government can act in any way they deem fit if any action is found to be prejudicial to “the security of the [Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir] or the maintenance of the public order.” The court said that unless something disrupts the life of the community at large, it remains a law-and-order problem that can be handled through regular criminal law.Story continues below this adThat distinction mattered because the State had already registered FIRs. The court said that preventive detention cannot be used as a workaround. If the ordinary law is in motion, the State cannot switch tracks just to keep someone in custody.Unless the facts are against public interest, Article 22(5) of the Constitution mandates that any person being detained under preventive detention laws shall have the grounds of such detention communicated to them “as soon as may be” in order to “afford him the earliest opportunity of making a representation against the order”.Also read | Decode Politics: What is PSA, the law under which first J&K sitting MLA heldThis becomes critical when preventive detention sits uneasily with personal liberty under Article 21. A detenue must have all the material relied upon. In Malik’s case, however, the State referred to videos but did not supply them, undercutting that right.What the court saidWhile quashing the detention order, the High Court relied on the Supreme Court case Mallada K Sri Ram v. State of Telangana (2022), in which the court had distinguished between “law and order” and “public order”. It said: “One has to imagine three concentric circles. Law and order represents the largest circle within which is the next circle representing public order and the smallest circle represents security of State. It is then easy to see that an act may affect law and order but not public order just as an act may affect public order but not security of the State.”Story continues below this adIn the present case, the State had argued that Malik’s conduct, ranging from protests to alleged obstruction of officials, had posed a threat to public order. The court rejected this, saying that the DDRs recorded from June 2021 to September 2025 “mainly pertain to normal law and order infractions/violations. The said DDRs, which have not been registered in the form of formal FIRs for want of proper verifications and for being without formal information reports, could not have been considered for ordering the preventive detention of the detenu.”Underlining the threshold for invoking the PSA, the court said that “breach of public order” should be understood as “chaos and confusion which involves public at large having the tendency to paralyze the day to day routine of the society. If an act of individual is alleged to have resulted in a sort of ‘disorder’ inviting the attention of the administration…without any public resentment/disorder against such act, cannot be termed as ‘public disorder’.”NewsletterFollow our daily newsletter so you never miss anything important. On Wednesday, we answer readers' questions.SubscribeThe court held that an act that merely attracts administrative attention without triggering wider societal disruption cannot be treated as public disorder. It said that Malik’s case did not pass muster. “Any annoyance or ill will expressed by public servants against the petitioner…cannot amount to public disorder.”The court also noted that invoking the PSA was legally untenable where ordinary criminal law could have been justified. “The alleged actions of the petitioner no doubt amount to infraction of normal criminal laws for which the legal mechanism in place was already pressed into service. The invocation of the provisions of the PSA to detain the petitioner rather than to pursue the prosecution against him appears to be an unjustified exercise tantamounting to violation of the fundamental rights of the petitioner,” the order said.Story continues below this adIt said that “the normal criminal law machinery can never be apprehended to be inadequate as the criminal procedural law takes care of any attempt to thwart the judicial process”.Another issue the court noted was the linking of past cases to the detention order. It said that proximity from the incident to the passing of the detention order is not only about time but also about relevance to the grounds of detention, whether the acts are relevant to “public order” or merely to routine legal violations. The court held that the detention order suffered from “non-application of mind” and found no material to support the view that Malik had acted or was to act in a manner prejudicial to public order. It said that “ground was not made out for framing an opinion by the detaining authority that the petitioner/detenu has either acted or is likely to act in a manner prejudicial “public order” distinguishable from “law and order”.