PREM CHAND PANIWALA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Who will police the police Is freedom of movements unreasonably fettered if policemen are given power of externment for public peace These twin problems of disturbing import, thrown up by this bizarre case, deserve serious examination. The former is as important as the latter, especially when we view it in the strange police setting painted by the petitioner. The constitutional question, which we will state presently and discuss briefly, has become largely otiose so far as the present petitioner is concerned because counsel for the State has assured the court that they will drop police surveillance or any, action by way of externment as proposed earlier. The police methodology with sinister potential to human liberty described by the petitioner, if true, deserves strong disapproval and constitutional counteraction by this Court. But before committing ourselves to any course, we must set out the factual matrix from which the present case springs.

(2.) The statutory starting point of the criminal saga of Shri Prem Chand Paniwala, the petitioner, now threatened with externment proceedings, is the Delhi Police Act, 1978, Ss. 47 and 50 of the said Act clothe the Commissioner of Police with externment powers necessary for keeping the capital city crime-free. One such power relates to the removal of persons about to commit offences.

(3.) The procedural prescriptions and substantive directions, in this behalf, are laid down in the above provisions. The Deputy Commissioner of Police (the DCP for short) in exercise of the said power, initiated proceedings against the petitioner and directed him to show cause why he should not be externed from the Union Territory of Delhi. Paniwala who, from humble beginnings as vendor of aerated water near a cinema theatre, had spiralled up into a prosperous dealer in Vasant Vihar, when confronted by this Police notice, decided upon a constitutional show-down and came to this Court challenging the vires of the externment proceedings as arbitrary and unreasonable restrictions of his freedom of movement and, therefore, contrary to Arts. 14 and 19 and 21 of the Constitution.