GIRIJA BRIJ MOHAN SOOD Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) . The petitioner seeks to challenge the order of detention dated 29/12/1993, passed under Sec. 3(1) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (as amended) ('COFEPOSA Act' for short) against her husband, Brij Mohan Rameshchandra Sood. The order was passed by Shri Mahendra Prasad, Joint Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of Finance, who is specially empowered under Sec. 3(1) of the COFEPOSA Act. The said order was passed, as the order states, with a view to preventing the detenu from smuggling goods in future, which satisfaction he had arrived at on the basis of the material before him.

(2.) . The detenu was served with the grounds of detention on 5th January, 1994 and the documents in support thereof were served on him on 12/01/1994. On the same day, i. e., on 12/01/1994, the petitioner made a representation on behalf of the detenu that the order passed against her husband be revoked on account of bad health of the detenu and the various family responsibilities which he was required to attend to. The said representation was directly addressed to Shri Mahendra Prasad (in his name), who had passed the order. The detenu also made another representation to the detaining authority on 15/01/1994, wherein he submitted that the order of detention be revoked. He also submitted that his case be placed before the Advisory Board at the earliest and, in the meanwhile, he sought parole.

(3.) . The aforesaid two representations, though addressed to Shri Mahendra Prasad, respondent No. 2 - detaining authority, were not decided by the said detaining authority himself, but they came to be decided much later by the Central Government on 10/02/1994. By its letter dated 10/02/1994, the Central Government communicated to the detenu and to the petitioner that the two representations dated 12-1-1994 and 15-1-1994 had come to be rejected. The said rejection letter states that the order of detention passed against the detenu was the order passed by the Central Government and on that footing the said representations were carefully considered by the Central Government and the same had been rejected.