Patna: The Patna high court has upheld a state govt order sending Karnvir Singh Yadav alias Lallu Mukhiya to Bhagalpur central prison under preventive detention, while also validating the state’s action declaring him “anti-social” under the Bihar Control of Crimes Act 2024.Karnvir, a local politician with a chequered criminal history in Barh sub-division of Patna district, was placed under preventive detention twice, each for six months, through orders passed by the district magistrate (DM) of Patna on Dec 10 last year and June 6 this year.A division bench comprising justices Bibek Chaudhuri and Rana Vikram Singh dismissed a criminal writ petition filed by Karnvir and refused to quash the detention orders. The verdict was delivered on Aug 6 but came into the public domain on Monday.Senior counsel Nivedita Nirvikar, representing Karnvir, challenged the legality of the state’s action, submitting that the DM had no jurisdiction to pass the detention orders. She also alleged procedural irregularities in the process leading to the orders.Advocate General Satya Darshi Sanjay opposed the petition, submitting that the Patna DM had exercised powers conferred under the newly enacted crime control law. Unlike previous crime control laws, the new law provides a new definition of “anti-social”, under which a person need not have been held guilty of any crime to be declared anti-social.Sanjay further argued that preventive detention was an anticipated measure to secure “public order” and Karnvir’s past criminal record qualified him to be declared anti-social by the state govt.
