AABEDABEGUM Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this group of seven Special Criminal Applications the same grounds of detention based on the same instance were utilised by the detaining authority namely the State of Gujarat against the respective detenu whose case has come up before the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution praying for writ of habeas corpus on behalf of the respective detenue and in view of the fact that common questions of fact and law are involved in each of these cases we will dispose of all these cases by this common judgment.

(2.) Out of these Special Criminal Applications Special Criminal Application No. 72 of 1980 has been argued at length before us and in the other Special Criminal Applications the petitioners have urged the same arguments though there is one salient difference in facts between the detenu in Special Criminal Application No. 72 of 1980 and the rest of the detenues in this case and that difference we will point out in the course of this judgment. Barring that particular difference the rest of e facts are all the same.

(3.) The detenu in Special Criminal Application No. 72 of 1980 is one Jashwant Chandulal Patel. He is a partner of two firms both of which _cal in bullion silver bullion silver ornaments etc. One of these firms is the firm of Messrs Chokshi Vinodchandra Chandulal Patel and the other firm of which he is a partner is Messrs Jashwant Bullion Company. Both these firms carry on business as dealers in bullion at Ahmedabad. By order of detention dated 30/01/1980 Jashwant Chandulal Patel was detained and the order was passed under sec. 3(1) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act 1974 (herein-after referred to as the COFEPOSA) and the detention was with a view to preventing Jashwant Chandulal Patel from abetting the smuggling of goods and the detaining authority namely the Government of Gujarat was satisfied that with a view to preventing him from abetting the smuggling of goods it was necessary so to do.