ARJAN GIGA SHIYAL Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The first respondent on being satisfied that the petitioner is engaged in the activity of abetting the smuggling of goods, passed an order under section 3 of the COFEPOSA Act with a view to preventing him from continuing the said activity. That order of detention is challenged by the petitioner in this petition on various grounds.

(2.) One of the grounds of challenge is that the proposal to detain the petitioner was forwarded by the Customs department to the State Government on 267.11.185. No Immediate action was taken by the State Government and the impugned order of detention came to be passed on 9.10.1985 i.e. after a lapse of more than 2.1/2 months. As we are of the opinion that there is much substance in this contention and the petition deserves to be allowed on this ground on the basis of which the impugned order is challenged.

(3.) What is submitted by the learned advocate for the petitioner is that as the order of detention was passed after a long delay, that indicates that there was no genuine satisfaction on the part of the detaining authority as regards involvement of the petitioner in the alleged prejudicial activity. It was submitted that if the State Government was genuinely satisfied that the petitioner was really engaged in such a prejudicial activity, it would have passed the order of detention immediately and would not have waited for a period of 2.1/2 months and more. It is also submitted that no explanation worth the name has been given by the detaining authority as to why it could not pass the order of detention earlier. In the reply affidavit filed by the Deputy Secretary on behalf of the State Government, it is stated as under: The proposal from the Sponsoring Authority was received by the Home Department on 26.7.1985. Alongwith the present detenu there were other 7 codetenus and the proposals of the said detenus were also received along with the proposals of the present detenu. There were 97 documents containing 394 pages. The said documents were required to be checked and compared by the customs department. Thereafter they were required to be cyclostyled and were required to be compared by the Customs Department.