NASSIM JANIV Vs. LT GOVERNOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) She next challenge is that according to grounds of detention it is based on alleged confession made by him duing interrogation by the officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence. This confession, it has been submitted, cannot be treated as confession because it is recorded in the English language with which the petitioner was not very familiar and, in any case, which was retracted by the petitioner at that very moment. The contention is that the fact of retraction of the alleged confession or that the petitioner was not very familiar with the English language was not brought to the notice of the Administrator who made the impugned order of detention. These facts not having been brought to his notice the detention order stands vitiated for it cannot be predicated whether the Administrator would have passed the order of detention despite knowledge that the alleged confessions were not the confessions of the petitioner and were, in any case, confessions which had been retracted. Support for this proposition is sought from a bench decision of this court reported in I.L.R. 1975 (2) Delhi 791 and 1976 Criminal Law Journal 221.

(2.) The first , question for decision is whether the petitioner's contention that he is not familiar with the English language or not too familiar with the English language can be accepted. No doubt the petitioner claims to be an Israeli national but that does not mean that he is not familiar with the English language. Indeed, when he appeared in court in person on September 11, 1978 we noted in the proceedings of that date that the detenu was able to converse in English language with his counsel. This we noted as during the course of hearing we had asked the counsel of the petitioner to make certain enquiries from the detenu and he was able to give instructions to his counsel in intelligible language. When we put him to the test of writing English language, the petitioner could write in the English language in capital letters on the words being spelt out to him. No doubt his manner of conversation was that of a foreigner who was not too well up in English, neverth less he was able to understand English and give f instructions to his counsel in English. Therefore, we cannot persuade ourselves to agree with the learned counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner was unable to follow the officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence when they were interrogating him or when they were reducing what was being said during interrogation to writing. We have been shown the original record of the interrogation by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence. It runs into several pages and the interrogation lasted for several days. It is a typed record of the statement of the petitioner on interrogation. There are a number of corrections made in the record, each initialled by the petitioner. Each page of this long interrogation is initialled or signed by him. He has also signed at the end of the proceeding of each day. The signatures admitted by him to be his are not legible to spell out the petitioner's name in English language. There is also some other writing which, we are told, is in the script of the Hebrew language. This writing in Hebrew translated into English, according to Ben-Yehuda's Pocket English- Hebrew-English Dictionary, means "not under -stand". It is this writing in Hebrew which is claimed to be the retraction. It has been urged forcefully that inasmuch as the petitioner is not well-acquainted with the English language he wrote in his own language disowning what was reduced to writing during interrogation. This fact was not brought to the notice of the Administrator. The respondents admit that the translation of what was written in Hebrew was not made nor was it brought to the notice of the Administrator. The question is whether it has any effect on the validity of the detention order.

(3.) We have already noticed the result of our observation in court as to whether the petitioner could or could not understand the English language. It is strange that the petitioner chose to write in the Hebrew language something which even he must have known would not be intelligible to anyone in India. A retraction to be an effective retraction must be communicated in the manner to the authority concerned that the authority would understand it to be retraction. One could understand a situation where the petitioner was completely ignorant of the English language and had spoken in Hebrew and written in the Hebrew script. In the case of the petitioner he spoke in English, can speak in English, but chose to make a writing in the Hebrew language without telling anybody what he purported to write. A communication of this type would not be an effective communication as it is not capable of being understood by the party to whom the communication is sought to be made. Apart from this we find yet another feature in the case which persuades us to take the view that the petitioner did not act bona fide while endorsing some writing on the record of this interrogation. Various notices were served on him, for example, the detention order, the grounds of detention and the initial notices of search being effected by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence in his house. We have been shown from the original record these notices which were served on him On each one of those the petitioner has written in the English script the words "received copy" and then put his signatures, On some of these he has also made the same endorsement in the Hebrew script, as is to be found on the record of his interrogation. If the petitioner could write the words "Received copy" in English he could very well write that he did not understand or did not accept what was recorded during the interrogation also in the English script. Further-more the lady by the name of Mullin is shown to have been present during search, seizure and even some parts of the interrogation. She is admittedly an English lady well familiar with the English language and was reported to have been living with the petitioner in his house in Vasant Vihar as his wife or otherwise. There was nothing to prevent the petitioner in taking her assistance in making an intelligible retraction. We, therefore, hold that the writings in the Hebrew cannot be regarded as retractions and the respondents cannot be blamed for ignoring the same.