S MOHAMMED ALI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All the above-mentioned five writ petitions shall be disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) Petitioner herein seeks to quash the orders passed by the respondents dated 25-4-2003 and 15-2-2001 whereby the pre-detention representations of the petitioner were rejected. By the first order, the petitioners representation dated 17-6-2002 was dealt with while, by the second mentioned order, the subsequent four representations dated 7-7-2002, 9-8-2002, 25-9-2002 and 22-10-2002 were disposed of. These representations were made by the petitioner praying therein that a detention order dated 15-2-2001 passed under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (in short COFEPOSA) should not be executed and should be cancelled. Following facts will highlight the controversy involved in these unusual writ petitions.

(3.) Petitioner, who claims to be a lawyer, holds a licence as an accredited overseas recruiting agent, which licence is granted by the Ministry of Labour, Government of India. Petitioner has been holding this licence right from 1984. He was intercepted at Anna International Airport, Chennai on 10-12-2000, when he was on his way to Malaysia. He claimed that he was going there in pursuance of his business and that on 11th and 12th December, he had sent sixty workers to Malaysia for the purpose of employment. He claimed that he was carrying the amount of those sixty persons and thus he was carrying with him US$11700 in the denominations of US$100s, US$50s and US$20s. This amount was obviously not declared by him and he was therefore arrested by the officials of the Enforcement Wing. He was also charged with an offence under Sec.135-1A of the Customs Act and was put behind the bars. He claims that on this basis, an order for his detention came to be passed under COFEPOSA. 3. He did not wait for being served with the order of detention, which was tried to be served upon him and approached this Court vide W.P. No.3212 of 2001 on 16-2-2001. An interim order of status quo came to be passed in the said writ petition on 20th April 2001. Needless to mention that in the meantime, the respondents could not nab him. Ultimately, the writ petition came to be decided on 5-6-2002, whereby the writ petition was dismissed relying on the reported decision of the Supreme Court in Government of India v. Alka Subash Gadia (1992 Supp. (1) 496). The Division Bench (Jagadeesan and Murugesan, JJ.) gave a categorical finding therein that the petitioners case did not fall under any of the eventualities contemplated under the decision of Alka Subash Gadia, cited supra, so as to enable him to move a writ petition even before the order of detention was served against him. The Division Bench also took notice of the latter decisions of the Supreme Court in SAYED TAHER BAWAMIYA v. JOINT SECRETARY (2000 [8] SCC 630) and UNION OF INDIA v. MUNEESH SUNEJA (2001 [3] SCC 92) and came to the conclusion that the writ petition was liable to be dismissed. It was also observed by the Bench, relying on UNION OF INDIA v. PARASMAL RAMPURIA (1998 [8] SCC 402) that the petitioner was bound to surrender before the petition could be entertained.