India, Sept. 8 -- The Allahabad High Court's order quashing the preventive detention of student activist should be read carefully, not just by the Gautam Buddha Nagar administration whose conduct came under sharp censure, but also by bureaucrats and police officers sometimes too eager to signal their political allegiance by slapping draconian provisions on protesters. Against the backdrop of the lower judiciary often slow-pedalling politically sensitive cases, the judgment also offers a template for how constitutional courts must treat stringent laws as extraordinary provisions that should be used sparingly and rigorously backed up by evidence, not as a blunt instrument to stymie dissent.

The facts of the case, as laid out by the high co...