BABU KHAN Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SIX separate deten tion orders each dated 30th July, 1997 were passed under the provisions of Conserva tion of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (in short 'the COFEPOSA Act)' by the State Government on identical grounds. Out of whom two petitioners, namely. Babu Khan alias Babu Ahmad Siddiqui petitioner of W. P. No. 655 (H,c.) of 1997 and Vikas Gupta petitioner of Writ Petition No. 719 (H. C.) of 1997 are before us. So far as detention orders passed against Tahir Ali the alleged partner of Babu Khan, Mohd. Shafiq Driver of the truck, Iqrar Ahmad, Cleaner of the truck and Chhuttan an al leged servant of Babu Khan, are con cerned, they were revoked by the State Government probably on the basis of the opinion received from the Advisory Board.

(2.) THE records of these six detenus maintained by the State Government in the Secretariat were called by us from which it- is clear that all the six were detained on identical reasons and-grounds. In fact, the detention orders passed against all these six persons are verbatim true copy of each other from top to bottom. All the six detention orders were passed under Section 3 (i) and (iii) of the COFEPOSA Act in order to prevent the deteuns from smuggling the goods or engaging in transporting or concealing and keeping the smuggled goods.

(3.) SO far as Babu Khan petitioner of Writ Petition No. 655 (HC) of 1997 is concerned, it has been mentioned in the grounds of detention that his gang was engaged in smuggling activities for quite some time and in a case of smuggling of goods valued at Rs. 25 Lacs Babu Khan absconded after threatening the Police in the year 1996 regarding which a case was registered, in Paragraph 8 of the petition it had been mentioned that in that case in vestigation was closed because in spite of the fact that several persons by the name of Babu Khan were questioned in Nawabganj but none was found involved in any case of smuggling activities. Thus, it is clear that the detaining authority while passing the detention order against Babu Khan took into consideration the extraneous material and the relevant material that Babu Khan was not found involved in any previous smuggling activities, was not placed before the State Government. In view of this, the detention order passed against Babu Khan is also vitiated. Apart from the above, both the detention orders have to fall yet on another ground. As mentioned above, the detention orders passed against all the six persons including the two petitioners are verbatim true copies of each other from beginning to end in spite of the fact that all the six of them had different roles assigned to them in the smuggling activities according to the detaining authority. It shows a mechanical exercise of power in issuing cyclostyled identical detention orders without shifting material applicable to each of the detenu.