LEIMAPOKPAM GUNI SINGH Vs. UNION TERRITORY OF MANIPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner in this case was sentenced to 6 months' S.I. under Section 6(b) of the Preventive Detention Act (hereinafter to be called the Act) by the S.D.M., I.W. in Criminal Case No. 748 of 1960. His appeal to the Sessions Judge against the said conviction and sentence was dismissed. Now he has come up in revision.

(2.) DURING the recent agitation in Manipur in connection with the demand for Legislative Assembly the District Magistrate, issued an order Ext. A/2 on 14.8.1960 under Section 3(1)(a)(2) of the Act for tie detention of die petitioner with a view to preventing him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order in Manipur Territory. The Police Officer P.W. 2 went to execute die detention order on 15.6.1960 and raided the house of the petitioner with a Police party. But the petitioner was found absent and thereupon P.W. 2 made an enquiry about his whereabouts and found that nobody could tell him about the same and he learnt that the petitioner was absconding and concealing himself to evade the service of the detention order and that there was no possibility of his immediate arrest.

(3.) IN support of that contention the decision Ashutosh Lahiry v. : AIR1953SC451 , was brought to my notice. But the said decision would not, in any way, help the petitioner. No doubt, the decision held that a detenu under the Act would be entitled to establish that the order under Section 3 of the Act was issued mala fide and in abuse of powers. But the decision made it clear that the burden of proving the absence of good faith was upon the detenu and that it was certainly a heavy burden to discharge and that mere suspicion was however not proof of mala fide. In that particular case, even though their Lordships of the Supreme Court felt that the recourse to the drastic provisions of the Act instead of a preventive order under Section 144, Cr.P.C. lent some suspicion about the good faith of the order. Still their Lordships Were not prepared to hold that the order was mala fide and dismissed the petition filed by the detenu.