DALAM CHAND TEJMAL BAID Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner herein, Dalam Chand TejmalBaid, was arrested on 21/07/1981 under the provisions of Customs Actand remanded to judicial custody by the Additional Chief MetropolitanMagistrate, Delhi. The petitioner filed a petition for issuance of a writ ofhabeas corpus challenging his detention by virtue of the said remand order.That petition (Criminal Writ Petition No. 83/81) was allowed by a divisionbench of this Court on 18/12/1981. The case is reported in 1982Criminal Law Journal at page 747. The petitioner was directed to bereleased forthwith.

(2.) While in judicial custody the impugned order dated 27/08/1981 was passed with a view to preventing the petitioner from smugglinggoods and from acting in any manner prejudicial to the conservation andaugmentation of foreign exchange. This order was served on the detenueon that very day. It appears that the fact that the detention order had beenpassed against the petitioner was not brought to the notice of divisionbench. On that petition being allowed, the petitioner was released from theCentral Jail, Tihar on 19/12/1981, inspite of the fact that thecase of the petitioner for preventive detention had been approved by theAdvisory Board.

(3.) The petitioner is a resident of Bombay. He was arrested on 30thMarch, 1983 and was brought to Delhi and lodged in the said Tihar Jail.According to the respondents the petitioner has been lodged in jail as "hehad aot undergone his full term of detention inasmuch as he was detainedon 28.8 81 and erroneously released by jail authorities on 19.12.81 and isrequired to undergo the remaining period of detention for a period of one yearless than the period he had already undergone detention." (Italics added)