Aam Aadmi Party legislator Mehraj Malik was released from Kathua jail on Tuesday following the quashing of his detention under the Public Safety Act by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.

Malik said that now that he had been released, he would continue to raise and talk about the issues of the people.

Setting aside the detention order issued by the Doda district magistrate against Malik on September 8 last year, Justice Mohd Yousuf Wani directed authorities to “release the petitioner-detenu forthwith from his preventive detention”.

"Malik was released by jail authorities this morning after completion of all formalities," his lawyer and AAP spokesperson Appu Singh Slathia told reporters here.

As the gates of Kathua jail opened this morning to release the AAP leader, scores of people shouted slogans in his favour, danced to the beats of dholaks and garlanded him with flowers.

After being released from jail, he said that he would continue to fight for the people.

"I am now out of jail. I thank the judiciary for justice to me. I will continue to raise the issues and talk about people," he told reporters here.

The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh on Monday quashed the preventive detention of Aam Aadmi Party legislator Mehraj Malik under the Public Safety Act (PSA), holding that the order was legally unsustainable and based on “non-application of mind”.

Malik, who is the AAP's Jammu and Kashmir unit president, was detained under the PSA in September for allegedly disturbing public order and was subsequently lodged in Kathua jail.

The MLA was accused of using unparliamentary language against the district magistrate of Doda and was subsequently charged under the stringent Public Safety Act. The DM had cited multiple FIRs against the MLA as grounds for his detention under the PSA.

The court termed the use of the PSA as unjustified and a violation of fundamental rights of the MLA who had to spend 299 days in jail. Under the PSA, a person can be jailed up to two years without trial or prosecution. Amnesty International has called the PSA a lawless law.

The court today said the cases filed against the MLA on charges of violation of code of conduct in elections or protests over the relocation of a health centre did not disturb the "even tempo of the life of the community."

Following the court ruling, Kejriwal took to X and criticised PM Modi and blamed him for giving “illegal orders”. “Wo galti se PM ban gaye. Unko thanedar hona chahiye tha. (He became PM by mistake. He shoukd have been a jail officer),” Kejriwal wrote on X. Malik is the Jammu and Kashmir unit chief of the AAP.

Chief minister Omar Abdullah and CPI(M) leader M Y Tarigami also highlighted the misuse of the stringent PSA that allows detention without charge or trial for up to two years in some cases, while Malik's supporters took to streets in his home constituency in Doda to welcome the ruling.

"He should NEVER have been detained under PSA; in fact, he should never have been detained at all. His detention was a gross misuse of this law & totally unjustified. I hope the people responsible for this detention learn a valuable lesson from the decision of the High Court & reflect on the way these laws are being abused in J&K," he wrote.

On September 24, he filed a habeas corpus petition in the high court, challenging his detention and seeking Rs 5 crore as compensation.

On February 23, the high court had reserved its order in the case.

In his 87-page order, the judge said, “…the impugned detention order issued by district magistrate, Doda is quashed with direction to the respondents to release the petitioner/detenu forthwith from his preventive detention in the instant case.” The court underscored the distinction between 'law and order' and 'public order', observing that the material on record did not justify invoking preventive detention.

It noted that the alleged activities of the detenu did not amount to “public disorder” and held that there was “no live link or proximity between the alleged criminal activities and the need for passing of the impugned detention order”.

On the nature of cases cited against Malik, the court said they largely pertained to routine law and order issues, including election-related matters, adding that “almost all the criminal cases pertain to normal law and order violations not justifying the detention under PSA”.