SANSAR CHAND Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is challenging the detention order made on July 7, 1988 by specially empowered officer of the Government of India under Section 3(1) of the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Ordinance, 1988 (hereinafter referred! to as 'the Ordinance'. The order was passed by Shri K.L. Verma, Joint Secretary to the Government of India, against the petitioner (the detenu) with a view to preventing him from conspiring in the furtherence of export from India of Psychotropic substances. The petitioner is further seeking quashing of the declaration made by the Additional Secretary to the Government of India on August 10, 1988 under Section 10 of the Ordiannce. The petitioner filed a' representation to the Central Government on July 28. 1988 seeking copies of certain documents in Hindi to enable him to make an effective representation. It appears from the counter affidavit that this representation was rejected by the Finance Minister on August 31,1988. Thereafter, he made another representation seeking revocation of the detention order on September 5, 1988 which was rejected vide memorandum of October 31, 1988.

(2.) The petitioner has taken very many pleas in his writ petition. Mr. Malviya, learned counsel for the petitioner, however, urged only two grounds: (1) that the Government did not consider the representation promptly thus resulting in inordinate delay, which has not been explained ; and (2) that the representation was dealt with by the Under Secretary. It is clear from the return that the said representations were considered by the Finance Minister himself. Thus there is no force in the argument that those were not considered by the appropriate authority. The first ground taken by Mr. Malviya has, however, considerable force In paragraph (H) of the reply in counter affidavit, the time taken by the Government in dealing with the first representation has been explained as follows :

(3.) It is apparent from the above reply that at least 10 days were taken by the Collector of Customs, New Delhi to send his comments. Thereafter, one week i.e. from August 16, 1988 to August 23, 1988 was taken up for diarising and processing the papers. This delay has been termed as 'inordinate' by learned counsel for the petitioner. He relies on very many decision of the Supreme Court and this Court to show that unexplained delay of 10 days by any authority in dealing with the representation is to be held to be inordinate, which in turn invalidates the order of detention as having infringed the mandate on Article 2';(5) of the Constitution. The latest decision of the Supreme Court of this aspect is reported in Aslam Ahmed Zahire Ahmed Shaik v. Union of India & others, 1989 (2) S.C. 34. It was held :