In Brief
Sama Aruna challenged a detention order passed against her husband under the Telangana Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act, 1986, based on incidents occurring 9–14 years earlier (2002–2007). The Supreme Court held that grounds of detention must be sufficiently proximate in time to justify a reasonable belief that the detenu will engage in future criminal activity. Stale and old incidents, even if serious, cannot form the basis for preventive detention as they break the causal link between past conduct and present need for detention. The Court also held that detention should not be imposed merely to prevent an undertrial prisoner from securing bail. The Court set aside the detention order as vitiated by reliance on irrelevant, stale grounds.
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