SEBASTIAN GEORGE FERNANDES Vs. D N CAPOOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The above three writ petitions can be conveniently disposed of by a single judgment, since the facts are common and the grounds of challenge are the same.

(2.) By three orders, all of them dated 27th April, 1987, and issued by the officer on Special Duty and Ex-Officio Secretary to the Government of Maharashtra, Home Department, the detention of George Fernandes, Brighton Pereira and Menino Beato Picifico Rebello had been ordered under Section 3(1) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974, with a view to preventing them from abetting the smuggling of goods. The said persons were detained and the order of detention along-with the grounds for detention had been served on them. The validity of these orders is being challenged in the above Writ Petitions.

(3.) Although several grounds of challenge had been advanced in the petitions, Mr. Dias, learned Senior Counsel appearing in each of the petitions, restricted his attack to the fact that the statement of one Dayalal Kapoor Chand Jam recorded by the Customs Authorities on September, 1986 in Hindi has not been translated and supplied to each of the detenus. He contends that the detenus are not conversant with Hindi language and in any case, they do not know to read and write that language. The copy of the statement given to the detenus is written in Hindi. The said statement had been recorded by the Customs Authorities under Section 108 of the Customs Act and was relied upon by the Detaining. Authority for the purposes of issuing the detention order. The detenus were therefore, prejudiced inasmuch as they had no sufficient knowledge and understanding of the material relied upon in order to enable them to represent against their detention.