Preventive detention is unsustainable where the authority fails to assess whether ordinary laws are inadequate.

The petitioner challenged a detention order dated 30 December 2025, made under Section 3 of the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act, 1981 (MPDA), and a related committal order.

The detaining authority relied on two registered prohibition offences and two in-camera witness statements.

In the first offence, the petitioner was not arrested and was served a notice under Section 35(3) of the BNSS; in the second, he was arrested and released on bail the same day.

Before the second offence, on 1 September 2025, he had executed a one-year bond for good behaviour under Section 93 of the Maharashtra Prohibition Act, which remained in force when the detention order was passed.

The petitioner argued that the authorities had not shown why ordinary legal measures were insufficient.

1. Whether the detaining authority’s conclusion that ordinary laws were insufficient to curb the petitioner’s activities demonstrated non-application of mind, given the existing good-behaviour bond and the absence of action for its alleged breach.

2. Whether the detention order was sustainable in the circumstances.

Section 3 of the MPDA authorises preventive detention.

Section 93 of the Maharashtra Prohibition Act permits a competent Magistrate, on information that a person habitually commits or attempts to commit offences under that Act, to require the person to show cause why a bond for good behaviour should not be executed; the court noted that the corresponding BNSS provisions apply to the proceedings.

The court treated the detaining authority’s consideration of whether ordinary law was sufficient to address the person’s activities as material to its subjective satisfaction: failure to address that question may demonstrate non-application of mind and render the detention order unsustainable.

The second prohibition offence occurred after the petitioner had executed the one-year bond, yet the authorities did not take steps under the ordinary legal process in response to the alleged breach.

Further, the petitioner had not been detained for a full day in either of the two offences relied on: he was not arrested in the first and was released on bail the same day in the second.

In these circumstances, the authority’s assertion that ordinary laws were insufficient—without addressing the available action relating to the bond—showed that it had not applied its mind to the necessity of preventive detention.

The High Court made the Rule absolute, and quashed and set aside the detention order.

It directed that the petitioner be released forthwith, if not required in any other case.