MADAN SHAW Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application under Section 491 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is directed against the detention of the petitioner Madan Shaw alias Thatera, under the provisions of the Preventive Detention Act, 1950. On 29th Of November, 1960, the District Magistrate of Burdwan issued an order on the petitioner Madan Shaw alias Thatera that with a view to preventing him from acting in a manner prejudicial to the maintenance of the public order, it was necessary to detain the petitioner. On the same day, 29th November, 1960, another order was issued by the District Magistrate, Burdwan, directing that the petidoner be detained in the Burdwan jail and on the same date, 29-11-60, the grounds of detention under Sub-section (2) of Section 3 of the Preventive Detention Act, 1950 were served upon the petitioner. The Government of West Bengal by an order dated 7th December, 1960 approved of the order made by the District Magistrate, Burdwan, on the 29th November, 1960. The papers together with the representation of the petitioner were then referred to an Advisory Board which heard the petitioner in person. After the Advisory Board had given the opinion that there was sufficient cause for the detention of the petitioner. Government passed an order on the 2nd February, 1961, directing that the petitioner be detained until the expiry of 12 months from the original date of the detention. It is against that order that the petitioner has moved this court.

(2.) Mr. S. S. Mukherji, appearing for the Petitioner, has urged that the grounds are vague and that some of the grounds are false and, therefore, the order of detention cannot be supported. It has been held in a number of cases decided by the Supreme Court that if the grounds are so vague that no reply to the grounds is possible, the order of detention must be considered bad and cannot be sustained. In the present case, having gone through the grounds served on the petitioner, we find that each of the six grounds contains definite allegations of fact and it cannot be said that any of the grounds is so vague that no reply was possible. Thus the first ground urged by Mr. Mukherji on behalf of the petitioner must be rejected.

(3.) The next ground urged is that some of the grounds are false. In the first ground it is mentioned that on 29-11-58 at 11-30 p. m. when one Jagadish Singh, son of late Murat Singh o Chabka, P. S. Kulti, district Burdwan, found the petitioner loading stolen Railway materials and Telegraph copper wire into a truck on the G.T. Road at Neamatpur, the petitioner threatened the aforesaid Jagadish Singh with a dagger, telling him that he would be killed if the fact was disclosed to the police. According to the petitioner, no such Jagadish Singh exists at Chabka and that a registered letter was addressed to Jagadish Singh at the address given in the ground, but the letter was returned with the endorsement 'not known'. The Government, in its affidavit in reply, has explained' that there is a floating industrial population in that area of Burdwan district and that there was one G. D. entry made by one Jagadish, son of Murat Singh of Chabka on 29-11-58 mentioning the fact of the above threat by the petitioner, and that it was possible that the aforesaid Jagadish had, thereafter, moved out of the area mentioned in the ground, namely, Chabka, P. W. Kulti.