75 years on, India’s long standing silence on preventive detention is echoing loudly today
More than seven decades after independence, the State and its institutions appear strikingly detached from the ethos of transformative constitutionalism—nowhere more evident than in their continued reliance on and justification of the preventive detention regime.
Swarati Sabhapandit
Published on: 23 October 2025, 05:04 pm
IN HIS DISSENTING OPINION in Liversidge vs. Anderson (1942), Lord Atkin valiantly said,
“In England, amidst clash of arms, the laws are not silent. They may be changed but they speak the same language in war as in peace. It is always been one of the pillars of freedom, one of the principles of liberty for which on recent authority we are now fighting, that the judges are no respecters of persons, and stand between the subject and any attempted encroachments on his liberty by the executive, alert to see that any coercive action is justified in law.”
Lord Atkin’s dissent is widely celebrated as a progressive intervention in the jurisprudence of civil liberty. However, the actions of the Indian judiciary regarding the State’s recurring use of preventive detention measures to curb free speech suggest a starkly different story. It is frightening how silent the courts can be amidst brutal violations of civil liberties.
Renewed concerns over preventive detention
On October 2, Gitanjali Angmo, wife of 59-year-old engineer-turned-teacher-turned-climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, approached the Supreme Court of India seeking information about her husband’s whereabouts. Mr. Wangchuk had been detained under the National Security Act, 1980 (‘NSA’) —India’s most sweeping preventive detention law—by the Ladakh police on September 26. His arrest was linked to the September 24 violence in Leh, which left four dead and nearly 150 injured.
It is frightening how silent the courts can be amidst brutal violations of civil liberties.
Mr. Wangchuk emerged as the leading face of the civil society protest movement in Ladakh, which has been demanding constitutional safeguards such as statehood, inclusion under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, and protection of the region’s fragile ecology. He and fifteen others were on the fifteenth day of a planned thirty five-day hunger strike when violence broke out. This marked his fifth hunger strike in the past five years, undertaken to draw the government’s attention to these issues.
While the Home Ministry has accused Mr. Wangchuk of “making provocative statements” and using the protest as a platform to mislead the public and advance his political ambitions, the authorities have yet to disclose the detention order.
In response to a writ petition filed by Dr. Angmo under Article 32 of the Indian Constitution, the Supreme Court has issued notice to the Central Government. The petition contends that the detention is unconstitutional under Article 22, as neither the detainee nor the petitioner has been provided with the grounds of arrest. Although the substantive issues are expected to unfold in the upcoming hearing, the Centre has maintained that there is no obligation to disclose the grounds of detention to either the detenu or the petitioner—raising serious concerns about transparency and adherence to constitutional safeguards.
A tool of suppression
Section 8(2) of the NSA allows the detaining authority to withhold information about the grounds of detention in “exceptional circumstances” for five days which could be extended to a maximum fifteen days. Without the order, the adjudication of the matter is not possible.
