The Jammu and Kashmir High Court has quashed the preventive detention of a man booked in three cases involving unauthorised transportation of bovines and held that the detaining authority failed to consider that the animals involved were male bovine animals, including yaks, and not cows, before citing potential “ communal disharmony ”.

Justice Sanjay Dhar observed that the petitioner was not involved in the transportation of cows that are held in reverence by a particular community. The High Court noted that the detaining authority had not taken these aspects of the matter into account and exercised a “mechanical exercise of power”.

In its October 22 ruling, the High Court held, “Merely because the petitioner is involved in offences relating to the transportation of bovine animals without permission is not a sufficient ground to invoke preventive detention, particularly in a case where the subjective satisfaction arrived at by the detaining authority suffers from non-application of mind.…