PADMA KUMAR BHAWSINKA Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Personal liberty protected under Art. 21 of the Constitution is always held to be so sacrosanct and so high in the scale of constitutional values that great anxiety for its protection has received expeditious attention. This liberty is by every reckoning the greatest of human freedom and the laws of preventive detention receive strict construction and mandate meticulous procedure safeguards, however, technical. The right to life, a basic human right assured by Art. 21 comprehends something more than mere animal existence, i.e;, dignity of the individual, as observed by Field, J. in Munn v. Illinois (1876) 94 US 113. The question that arises in this writ application which is of seminal importance is whether the order of detention can be questioned even before the execution thereof. As a corollary it falls for adjudication whether delay in execution can be a ground for invalidating it and if so under what circumstances.

(2.) A preventive detention was held in Rex v. Halliday, 1917 AC 260 not to be punitive but precautionary measure. The object is not to punish a man for having done something but to intercept him before he does it and to prevent him from doing it. No offence is proved, nor any charge is formulated; and the justification of such detention is suspicion or reasonable probability and there is no criminal conviction which can only be warranted by legal evidence. In that sense it is anticipatory action. Preventive Justice requires an action to be taken to prevent apprehended objectionable activities.

(3.) The factual backdrop in which the present petition has been filed to pre-empt the detention is that the petitioner is a dealer in essential commodities and at the relevant time held a licence for purchases, sale or storage of free-sale sugar. On 10-7-1989 certain officials of the Food and Supplies Department raided the godown of the petitioner and seized 231 bags of free-sale sugar. A proceeding under S.6-N of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 (10 of 1955) (in short 'the Act') was initiated which is still in cold storage and is pending adjudication before opposite party No. 2 Again on 26-9-1980 several personnel of the Civil Supplies Department visited the business premises of the petitioner and seizes 113 quintals of free-sale sugar for alleged contravention of several conditions of' the licence issued to the petitioner under the Sugar (Control) Order, 1966 (in short 'The Order') and the Orissa Sugar Dealers Licensing Order, 1963 (in short 'the State Order'). A prosecution report for initiation of proceeding alleging contravention of several provisions of the Act was submitted.