DURAI Vs. SECRETARY TO GOVT OF T N

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Durai, petitioner, has been detained under Section 3(1) of the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Forest Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders and Slum Grabbers Act 1982 (Tamil Nadu Act 14 of 1982), under the orders of the District Magistrate and Collector of Chengai-M.G.R. District at Kancheepuram. The grounds of detention referred to two incidents of crime relating to distillation of arrack and punishments of fine imposed upon him for the said offences. He has been detained, however, after his arrest in a raid in the morning of 25/07/1993 by a Prohibition Enforcement Wing of the Police in the District in connection with a case of selling illegally distilled arrack mixed with Chloral Hydrate. It is said the two sample bottles and ganja, which he was selling, were sent for chemical examination and analyst's report has revealed that in the sample he detected the presence of 116.0 mg. of Chloral Hydrate per 100 ml. of arrack.

(2.) Since Chloral Hydrate is an intoxicating and poisonous substance, the chemical analyst's report reveals that it came to the opinion that if a person consumed arrack with Chloral Hydrate, he would develop unconsciousness, vomitting, loss of appetite, headache, burning sensation of eyes, giddiness and respiratory failure. The detaining authority found it proper to detain the petitioner for the sale of such arrack by him was likely to cause widespread danger to life and public health and thus attract Section 3(1) of the Act. Although the petitioner was in the Central Prison, Madras, as a remand prisoner, the detaining authority, thought, in similar cases bails were granted after a lapse of some time, there was imminent possibility that the petitioner might come out on bail at any time and might indulge in such prejudicial activities in future and thus issued order of detention. A bootlegger has been defined under the Act as a person, who distils, manufactures, stores, transports, imports, exports, sells or distributes any liquor, intoxicating drug or other intoxicant in contravention of any of the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act, 1937 (Tamil Nadu Act X of 1937) and the rules, notifications and orders made thereunder, or in contravention of any other law for the time being in force, or who knowingly expends or applies any money or supplies any animal, vehicle, vessel or other conveyance or any receptacle or any other material whatsoever in furtherance of support of the doing of any of the above mentioned things by or through any other person, or who abets in any other manner the doing of any such thing. A bootlegger thus may be found to affect or likely to affect adversely the maintenance of public order, if he is engaged or is making preparation for engaging in any of his activities as a bootlegger which, as explanation to Section 2(a) of the Act.,

(3.) Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner has however challenged the detention on the ground that the present case is one of the alleged sale while antecedent activities are only acts of distilling arrack. He has thus submitted that the activities of sale are not which could be correlated with the activities of distilling and thus what he has done in the past as a bootlegger should not be taken as having been continued in the act of selling the arrack mixed with Chloral Hydrate. We are however not impressed by the above as in such a case, distillation, transportation and sale are invariably found inter-mixed. It is difficult to perceive the illegal distillation and possession without there being any transportation and/or selling involved in it. In any case, this is not a circumstance in which the Court should give any credence to the contention aforementioned for the simple reason that the petitioner's arrest for his having been found involved in the sale of illicitly distilled arrack mixed with Chloral Hydrate is in itself an act which will cause widespread danger to life and public property.