STATE OF MAHARASHTRA Vs. PRABHAKAR PANDURANG SANZGIRI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Prabhakar Pandurang Sanzgiri, who has been detained by the Government of Maharashtra under R. 30 (1) (b) of the Defence of India Rules, 1962, in the Bombay District Prison in order to prevent him from acting in a manner prejudicial to the defence of India, public safety and maintenance of public order, has written, with the permission of the said Government, a book in Marathi under the title "Anucha Antarangaat" (Inside the Atom). The learned Judges of the High Court who had gone through the table of contents of the book, expressed their opinion on the book thus:

(2.) The contentions of the learned Additional Solicitor-General may be briefly stated thus:When a person is detained he loses his freedom; he is no longer a free man and, therefore, he can exercise only such privileges as are conferred on him by the order of detention. The Bombay Conditions of Detention Order, 1951, which regulates the terms of the first respondent's detention, does not confer on him any privilege or right to write a book and send it out of the prison for publication. In support of his contention he relies upon the observations of Das, J., as he then was, in A. K. Gopalan vs. State of Madras, (1950) SCR 88 at page No. 291, wherein the learned Judge has expressed the view, in the context of fundamental rights, that if a citizen loses the freedom of his person by reason of a lawful detention, he cannot claim the rights under Art. 19 of the Constitution as the rights enshrined in the said article are only the attributes of a free man.

(3.) Mr. Garg, learned counsel for the detenu, raised before us the following two points:(1) a restriction of the nature imposed by the Government on the detenu can only be made by an order issued by the appropriate Government under Cls. (f) and (h) of sub-r. (1) of R. 30 of the Defence of India Rules, 1962, hereinafter called the Rules, and that too in strict compliance with S. 44 of the Defence of India Act, 1962, hereinafter called the Act, and that as the impugned restriction was neither made by such an order nor did it comply with S. 44 of the Act, it was an illegal restriction on his personal liberty; and (2) neither the detention order nor the conditions of detention which governed the first respondent's detention enabled the Government to prevent the said respondent from sending his manuscript book out of the prison for publication, and therefore, the order of the Government rejecting the said respondent's request in that regard was illegal.