SC won't entertain plea for producing Farooq anymore

The Supreme Court refused on Monday to further entertain Rajya Sabha MP Vaiko's plea seeking former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah's production before it and said the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader could challenge the National Conference leader's detention order under the Public Safety Act.

"He (Abdullah) is under detention under the Public Safety Act," a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi told Vaiko's counsel.

The MDMK leader's counsel questioned the conduct of the Jammu and Kashmir administration and claimed that a few minutes before the scheduled hearing in the apex court on September 16, Abdullah was detained under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act.

The bench, also comprising Justices S A Bobde and S A Nazeer, said the petitioner could challenge the detention order against Abdullah under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act before the appropriate authority.

The court had, on September 16, directed the Centre and the Jammu and Kashmir administration to respond to Vaiko's plea.

Abdullah, 81, a three-time former chief minister of the state and a five-time parliamentarian, has been detained under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act.

Vaiko's counsel had told the apex court that there were conflicting claims about Abdullah's status and he was illegally detained by the authorities, which was an attack on his fundamental rights under the Constitution.

He had pressed for the original prayer for producing the NC leader before the court.

In his plea, Vaiko, who said he had been a close friend of Abdullah for the last four decades, had contended that the constitutional rights conferred on the NC leader were being denied on account of his 'illegal detention without any authority of law'.

The Centre had, on August 5, revoked Article 370 of the Constitution that gave a special status to Jammu and Kashmir and proposed that the state be bifurcated into the Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.