PRITAM NATH HOON Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I agree with the reasons, observations and holding of my learned brother in his Judgment on behalf of both of us. A brief supplement of my own, for reasons which will he apparent, may not be out of place and so I append my separate, concurring opinion.

(2.) The law of liberty is often the battle for principles of procedural protection; but 'great principles seldom escape working. injustice in particular things'. And when an anti-social element gets away with it, society is the victim of injustice. This grim comment is inevitable in the case before us where the petitioner has been detained without trial and seeks to free himself on the score of breach of basic requirements. My learned brother has explained how the violation, on the strength of the rulings of this court, vitiates the detention. Under our legal system, precedents bind and so, here we obey them and direct release of the detenu. Even so, the facts of the case strongly savour of an economic offender intercepted in his subterranean silver operations and betrayed by his collaborator. Nevertheless, the law is equal and hard cases cannot make bad law. That is why the petitioner must succeed. And, maybe, he has some convincing case if given an effective opportunity to explain. Who knows

(3.) What surprises me, however, is the Executive's strange indifference to compliance with law's requirements despite this court's pronouncements. This has resulted in the release of one who, the State alleges, is a master strategist of smuggling exploits at the expense of the national economy. If there be truth in that imputation, - it is not for me to express any view, especially since a prosecution may be launched - who but the concerned authorities are to blame Had the functionaries entrusted with the drastic detention power been careful enough to update their procedures in keeping with the strict directives laid down by this court the prospect of criminal adventurists continuing their precious metal traffic could have been pre-empted constitutionally by successful preventive detention. Had the rulings of this court, from time to time, in the precious area of personal liberty versus preventive detention, been converted into pragmatic 'instructions by a special cell the law would have fulfilled itself and served the nation with social justice. It is an imperative of social justice through State action that white collar robbers, dubiously respectable and professionally ingenious, reap the wages of their sins, viz., preventive detention and prompt prosecution, both according to law. Here, by not supplying promptly copies of the incriminating materials by an indifferent authority a detention is being judicially demolished. And prosecution for a serious offence is enjoying an occult spell of gestation because of official slow motion. Whether this court's insistence on the need to explain every day of delay in serving copies of every document on the detenu, is too tall an order in an atmosphere of habitual institutional paper-logging and hibernating is too late to ask. The judicial process if one may self-critically lament is itself no model of perfection in promptitude of disposal and may well sympathise with laggards elsewhere. But personal liberty, constitutionally sanctified, is too dear a value to admit of relaxation. And preventive detention being no substitute for prosecution. the criminal, law stands stultified by the State itself if a charge is not laid before court with utmost speed and the crime is not punished with deserving severity. The rule of law has many unsuspected enemies, and remember, limping legal process as well as slumbering executive echelons are contributories to social injustice.