New Delhi, March 2: The Supreme Court has fixed March 5 as the date for hearing the plea of Sara Abdullah, sister of former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, challenging the latter's detention under Public Safety Act (PSA). The stringent law was invoked against Abdullah on February 5, nearly six months after he was detained following the abrogation of Article 370 in J&K. 'I Pray for Early Release of Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti', Says Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

Sara, who is also the wife of Congress leader and Rajasthan's Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, had moved the top court in the first week of February. In her petition, Sara pointed out that her brother, in all tweets and messages leading to the repeat of Article 370 on August 5 last year, called upon the people to exercise restraint and maintain peace.

"All the public statements and messages posted by Omar Abdullah during the period up to his first detention would reveal that he kept calling for peace and co-operation – messages which in Gandhi’s India cannot remotely affect public order," the petition states.

"The PSA order conflates ‘Governmental policy’ with the ‘Indian State’, suggesting that any opposition to the former constitutes a threat to the latter. This is wholly antithetical to a democratic polity and undermines the Indian Constitution”, the plea further added.

Update by ANI

Apart from Omar Abdullah, his father and National Conference president Farooq Abdullah and former J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti are also slapped with the "draconian" Act. The law allows a detainee to be kept in custody for two years without trial. The controversial legislation was, incidentally, enacted in 1978 by late former CM and Omar's grandfather Sheikh Abdullah.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 02, 2020 01:20 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).