GUCHHAN Vs. DISTRICT MAGISTRATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By means of this petition the petitioner has challenged his detention by an order dated 26-4-1982 passed by the District Magistrate, Rampur under section 3(2) of the National Security Act, 1980 (hereinafter called the Act). The order of detention was served on him on 27-4-1982 and he was arrested and the grounds of detention were supplied to him on the same date. The order purports to be based on the subjective satisfaction of the District Magistrate that it was necessary to detain the petitioner with a view to preventing him from acting in a manner prejudicial to public safety. This subjective satisfaction according to the grounds of detention was founded on three incidents and the confidential report dated 8-1-1982 furnished by the Local Intelligence Unit of Rampur to the effect that the petitioner was a person notorious for his criminal activities, a history-sheeter of class A category, who was terrorizing the public with the result that no one was prepared to speak anything against him the people were afraid that if anyone expressed anything against him, then revenge would follow and he would be stained. It was also stated in the report that all legal proceedings instituted against the petitioner proved abortive and therefore for the preservation of public order it was necessary to detain him. The first incident was alleged to have been committed on 25-4-1981 when the petitioner fired at one Salim in the market with a view to killing him and then fled away. A prosecution under Section 307 Indian Penal Code was launched against him but witnesses on account of fear and panic refrained from identifying the petitioner and the police submitted a final report in the case. The second incident occurred on 28- 6-1981 when the petitioner was found passing on the road near the police outpost Gujar Tola at 11-15 in the night and the Sub-Inspector of Police had searched him and recovered one unlicensed pistol and four live cartridges from him. A case under section 25 Arms Act was still pending. The third incident took place on 13-12-1981 when the petitioner along with his brother and other associates with a 12 bore gun in his hand came and sat down on a public road and created such panic that the passers by fled in confusion and the inhabitants of the locality closed the doors of their houses and all the normal activity was paralyzed. On receiving the information the police force reached the spot but the petitioner disappeared and a first information report to that effect was lodged. On the top of these alarming incidents came the report of the Local Intelligence Unit dated 8-1-1982 to which we have already adverted. It was on this material that the subjective satisfaction of the District Magistrate was recorded.

(2.) The only point which has been canvassed with great vehemence by Sri Murli Dhar learned counsel for the petitioner is that ground No. 2 relating to the incident dated 26-6-1981 when an un-licenced pistol and four live cartridges are said to have been recovered from the person of the detenu was wholly irrelevant for the purposes of maintenance of public order and if one of the several grounds of detention such as ground No. 2 in the instant case was demonstrated to be not germane to the object of detention, the impugned order must be quashed and the petitioner was entitled to be set free. The border line between law and order on the one hand and public order on the other hand is thin and often imperceptible. The areas covered by them are rather overlapping and some times the distinction may elude our grasp. The investigation of an incident or fact in an isolated way concentrating only on its apparent attributes may prevent us from appreciating its impact on public order. The very concept of public order postulates that a seemingly circumscribed action may in conjunction with other activities attributed to a person any acquire a public dimension and may be construed as fraught with serious consequences spread over a large canvass. Therefore, merely an objective test based on the intrinsic quality of an act would not be a safe guide for determining whether the ground of detention is relevant for the purposes of public order or not. Really speaking it is not the intrinsic quality of an act but rather its latent potentiality which would be decisive for determining the connection of a ground of detention with public order. It is this test of the potentiality of on let is distinguished from its immediate or intrinsic quality which has been emphasized by the Supreme Court in various decisions. This metamorphosis of an apparently isolated act into one of deeper import and graver consequences may be occasioned by a variety of factors with which it may be coupled. It may proceed, for example, from a change in the prevailing circumstances or state of society, from the personality of the individual who is the author of the act, from the time at which the action is committed and so on. It would be wrong to dogmatic that any particular factor alone can convert a law and order problem into that of a threat to public order. The potentiality of an act which is not to be confounded with its intrinsic feature is not a self-contained phenomena; it is manifested and triggered off only in juxtaposition with other acts and incidents.

(3.) Sri Murli Dhar, learned counsel for the petitioner taxes exception to this approach of examining the potentiality of an not in the light of the surrounding circumstances, posterior and anterior, and that, we think is the basic fallacy in his argument. An episode perse may not be an example of public disorder but it may along with other circumstances cumulatively amount to public disorder. The alchemy which can transform intermittent acts into public disorder consists of proximity of time similarity in the pattern of such incidents their nexus with the maintenance of public order the prevailing social atmosphere, the nature of the crime committed and the history of antecedents of the author of such crimes. Such interpretation, so argued the learned counsel for the petitioner, is not warranted in law. He submitted that we cannot consider the events conjunctively to determine their legal effect; the interpretation must be disjunctive. We are unable to accept this contention. The same facts may in one setting may amount to questions of Jaw and order 'simpliciter' while in another setting they may have a direct bearing on the maintenance of public order. Those facts may acquire a different complexion when placed in a certain perspective and background. As observed in Wasi Uddin Ahmed v. The District. Magistrate, Aligarh U. P. and others. The acts similar in nature but committed in different contexts and circumstances, might cause different reactions. In one case, it might affect specific individuals and, therefore, touches the problem of law and order only, while in another it might affect public order.