A writ court does not sit in appeal over a detaining authority's subjective satisfaction

A Division Bench of Justices Anil K. Narendran and Muralee Krishna S. dismissed a father's second petition against his son's detention under the PIT NDPS Act.

The father of a man held in preventive detention under the narcotics statute has failed in his second attempt to have the detention set aside. A Division Bench of Justice Anil K. Narendran and Justice Muralee Krishna S. held that a court exercising jurisdiction under Article 226 does not sit in appeal over a detaining authority's decision on whether preventive detention is necessary, and that where materials exist the court cannot substitute its own view of them. The judgment was authored by Justice Muralee Krishna S.

The detention and the petition

The writ petition, W.P.(Crl.) No. 1202 of 2026, was filed by the petitioner, aged 69, the father of the detenu. It challenged a detention order of 28 March 2026 issued by the Additional Chief Secretary, Home Department, under Section 3(1) of the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1988, and an order of 25 July 2026 by which the State rejected the representation the petitioner had submitted on 14 July 2026. Besides certiorari to quash both, he sought a writ of habeas corpus commanding the respondents to produce the detenu and set him at liberty, on the contention that his detention in the Central Prison, Poojappura, was illegal.

The proposal for action under Section 3(1) had been submitted by the District Police Chief on 4 February 2026. The underlying crime is a case of the Medical College police station, Kozhikode. The record also carries a bail order of 1 April 2026 and a judgment of 7 July 2026 in an earlier writ petition — this being, as the Bench noted, the second petition the father had filed challenging the same detention order. The Union of India was impleaded as an additional respondent in August 2026. Sri M. Devesh led for the petitioner; Smt. Gayathri Krishnan, Central Government Counsel, and Smt. Reeha Khader, Senior Government Pleader, appeared for the respondents.

The chain of documents on the file traces the whole course of the detention. It begins with the District Police Chief's proposal of 4 February 2026 for action under Section 3(1), runs through the detention order of 28 March 2026, a bail order of 1 April 2026 in the criminal case, the judgment of 7 July 2026 disposing of the father's first writ petition, the representation he submitted on 14 July 2026, and the order of 25 July 2026 rejecting it. The present petition attacks the first and the last of those.

The limits of review, and the three exceptions

The Bench recorded that the Government's subjective satisfaction is reflected in the order rejecting the representation, and then set out the boundary of its own jurisdiction. A court under Article 226 does not sit in appeal over the decision taken by a detaining authority, on the materials placed before that authority, as to whether preventive detention is necessary or warranted. If there are materials, it is not open to the court to sit in appeal over the subjective satisfaction so arrived at. For that proposition it relied on George v. State of Kerala, 2010 (4) KLT 416, and Aaliya Ashraf v. State of Kerala, 2025 (1) KLT SN 15.

The judgment is equally clear about when interference is available, and the three situations are worth noting because they are the whole of the ground on which such a petition can succeed: where there are no materials at all for arriving at the subjective satisfaction; where the detaining authority's order is vitiated by mala fides; or where the order was issued by reference to, and in reliance on, materials which cannot legally be taken note of.

On the pleadings and materials on record, the Bench found it was not made out that the subjective satisfaction arrived at by the authorities was vitiated by any of those circumstances.

The shape of the inquiry matters for anyone bringing such a petition. The court does not ask whether it would have ordered detention on the same material, nor whether the material is persuasive. It asks whether there was material, whether the order was made in good faith, and whether what was relied on was legally capable of being relied on. A petition that argues the merits of the detention rather than one of those three things is arguing the wrong case.

Order

Having considered the pleadings, the materials on record and the submissions at the Bar, the Bench found no sufficient reason to hold that either the detention order of 28 March 2026 or the order of 25 July 2026 rejecting the representation suffered from any illegality warranting interference under Article 226. The writ petition was dismissed.