P CHINNASAMY THEVAR Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner herein challenges the detention of his son C. Rajendran ordered by the District Collector and District Magistrate, Dindigul by his order dated 7-4-1998 dubbing him as a Goonda under the provisions of Section 3 (1) of the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Forest Offenders, Goondas, immoral Traffic Offenders, Slum-Grabbers Act, 1982, hereinafter called as Tamil Nadu Act 14 of 1982. The Detaining Authority has relied upon six adverse cases and one ground case, the incident in which has occurred on 29-3-1998.

(2.) The learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submitted that the representation sent by the petitioner was not expeditiously considered and the delay in consideration has remained unexplained. The learned Counsel pointed out that the representation dated nil was sent somewhere before 20th May, 1998, while the detenu for the first time came to know about the fate of the detention only on 26-6-1998. The Public Prosecutor, however, sought to explain this period as below- According to him, the representation was received by the State Government on 20th May, 1998. The comments were received by the Detaining Authority and were dispatched to the State Government and the State Government received the same on with May, 1998. The State Government then considered this representation as the Under Secretary and the Joint Secretary worked on this representation on 21-5-1998, 22-5-1998 and 23-5-1998 and ultimately the representation was rejected by the Honourable Minister on 30th May, 1998 and the intimation of the rejection was however: sent on 26-6-1998. According to the Public Prosecutor, these dates would suggest that the representation was expeditiously considered. According to the public Prosecutor, there is no unexplained delay. It is pointed out by the learned Counsel for the petitioner that even after the rejection of the representation, there is no expeditious communication of the same to the detenu and the detenu came to know about the rejection only after several days. According to the learned counsel, the communication in hopelessly delayed.

(3.) There can be no doubt from the above factual panorama that though the representation was tried to be considered expeditiously, yet for some unknown reasons, it remained in the cold storage and the result thereof was not communicated to the detenu for a considerable period. There is absolutely no explanation in so far as this delay is concerned. The law is settled that Article 22(5) of the Constitution guarantees the detenu an earliest opportunity of making representation against the order. The said guarantee would also include the expeditious consideration. However the question is as to whether the said guarantee would also include expeditious communication of the result of the representation of the detenu. In our opinion the representation should not only be considered expeditiously but the result thereof has also to be intimated to the detenu. If the representation is decided upon and the detenu is not informed about the same, he would be in a state of suspended animation and would obviously not be able to decide upon the further course to be taken like making a fresh representation on the fresh grounds the guarantee given by Article 22 (5) of the expeditious consideration of the representation would remain an empty formality if the State Government is not required to intimate the-result of the rejection of the representation in a reasonable time, although what would be the reasonable time may differ from case to case depending upon the factual circumstances. The Apex Court has taken a view in its celebrated case reported in Harish Pahwa v. State of Uttar Pradesh that a representation made by the detenu has to be considered without are delay and the administrative delay in calling comments from the other departments, seeking the opinion of Secretary after Secretary and allowing the representation without being attended to cannot be brooked. In the same strength, the Apex Court says in paragraph 3 as follows: We would emphasise that it is the duty of the State to proceed to determine representation of the character above mentioned with the utmost expedition, which means that the mattermust be taken up for consideration as soon as such a representation is received and dealt with continuously (unless it. is absolutely necessary to wait for some assistance in connection with it) until a final decision is taken and communicated to the detenu.T It would be, therefore, clear that the stage of communication is also an integral and unseparable stage in consideration of the representation.