A Division Bench of High court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh comprising Chief Justice N.Koteshwar Singh and Justice M. A. Chowdhary while dealing with a case of Preventive detention has held that where the detenue is already arrested in a criminal case registered against him and the said fact is not in dispute, Non-furnishing of the copy of said FIR and the statements recorded of the witnesses under Section 161 Cr. P.C relating to the said FIR would not prevent the detenue from making an effective representation so as to infringe his right conferred under Article 22 (5) of the Constitution of India. The court held that mere non-furnishing of those materials may not lead to the inexorable inference that the detenue has been denied the opportunity to file an effective representation.

The court further observed that since all the allegations are already known to the detenue And are not new allegations made against him which would require any supporting documents to connect with him, we are of the view that non-furnishing of copies of the FIR or the documents relating to the case does not amount to denial of relevant materials. The fact that the detenue has not denied being arrested in the aforesaid case and later bailed out does indicate that he was already aware of the allegations against him in connection with the aforesaid FIR case.

The Court however observed that it would have taken the view that lack of furnishing of documents may prevent the detenue from making effective representation if the allegations were made for the first time on the basis of which the detenue was detained under the law of preventive detention.