SURESH MAHATO Vs. DISTRICT MAGISTRATE BURDWAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition is directed against an order of detention made by the District Magistrate, Burdwan under sub-section (1) read with sub-section (2) of Section 3 of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971. The order of detention was made on 18th January, 1972 on the ground that it was necessary to detain the petitioner with a view to preventing him from acting in a manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community. The District Magistrate forth-with reported the fact of the making of the order of detention to the State Government and the order of detention was approved by the State Government on 22nd January, 1972. Pursuant to the order of detention the petitioner was arrested on 18th February, 1972 and immediately on arrest, the grounds of detention were served on him. The petitioner made a representation against the order of detention on 14th March, 1972 but this representation was rejected by the State Government on 24th March, 1972. In the meantime the State Government placed the case of the petitioner before the Advisory Board on 15th March, l972 and the representation of the petitioner was also forwarded by the State Government to the Advisory Board. The Advisory Board, after considering the case of the petitioner and taking into account the representation made by him, gave its report on 24th April, 1972 stating that in its opinion there was sufficient cause for the detention of the petitioner. The order of detention was thereupon confirmed by the State Government by an order dated 17th May, l972. The petitioner has been in jail since then.

(2.) The first contention urged on behalf of the petitioner was that though it was stated by the District Magistrate in his affidavit in reply that the representation of the petitioner was forwarded to the Advisory Board, there was nothing in the affidavit in reply to show as to when it was so forwarded and whether the Advisory Board received it before it submitted its report to the State Government on 24th April, 1972. The omission to forward the representation to the Advisory Board before the Advisory Board gave its opinion constituted, according to the petitioner, a serious infirmity which vitiated the detention of the petitioner. Now, it is true that we do not find any statement in the affidavit in reply that the representation of the petitioner was forwarded to the Advisory Board before 24th April, 1972 when the Advisory Board submitted its report, but Mr. Chatterjee, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the State, produced before us the report of the Advisory Board and this report clearly showed that the Advisory Board had before it the representation of the petitioner and it was after considering. the representation of the petitioner that the Advisory Board gave its opinion. This contention must, therefore, be rejected.

(3.) The petitioner then contended that though the order of detention was made on 12th January, 1972, the petitioner was not arrested until 18th February, 1972 and this time lag of about one month between the date of the order of detention and the date of the petitioner's arrest showed that the District Magistrate was not really and genuinely satisfied as regards the necessity for detention of the petitioner, for otherwise he would have tried to secure the arrest of the petitioner promptly and not left him free to carry on his nefarious activities. This contention was sought to be supported by two recent decisions of this Court, one in Serajul v. State of West Bengal WP No. 2000 of 1973, D/- 9-9-1974 (SC) and the other Sk Nizamuddin v. State of West Bengal, WP No. 319 of 1974, D/- 5-11-1974. Now, there can be no doubt - and the law on this point must be regarded as well settled by these two decisions - that if there is unreasonable delay between the date of the order of detention and the date of arrest of the detenu, such delay, unless satisfactorily explained, would throw considerable doubt on the genuineness of the subjective satisfaction of the District Magistrate and it would be a legitimate inference to draw that the District Magistrate was not really and genuinely satisfied as regards the necessity for detaining the petitioner. But we do not think that a delay of about one month can be regarded as so unreasonable as to support such an inference negativing the genuineness of the satisfaction of the District Magistrate. This contention also cannot, therefore, be accepted.