MADAN LAL Vs. DISTRICT MAGISTRATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE short point for decision in the present case is whether a person who is ordered to be detained by a District Magistrate but whose period of detention is extended by an order of the state Government is entitled to claim that fresh grounds of detention should be supplied to him.

(2.) THE detenu in this case is one Roshan Lal, a shopkeeper of the Ferozepore District. On the 2nd March, 1951, the District Magistrate made an order under Section 3 of the Preventive detention Act, 1950, by which he directed that the said Roshan Lal shall be arrested and detained for a period of three months. He was arrested on the following day, and the grounds of detention were supplied to him on the 8th March. About a month later, that is on the 10th April, the Home Secretary to Government passed an order under Section 3 of the said Act directing that the detenu shall be detained for a period of six months with effect from the 3rd March, 1951. This order was served on the detenu on the 16th April, but no fresh grounds of detention were supplied to him.

(3.) MR. Jindra Lal, who has argued the case for the detenu with conspicuous ability, has taken several objections to the legality and propriety of the detention, among others being that the order issued by the District Magistrate, on the 2nd March was not shown to his client, that the grounds of detention supplied by the District Magistrate are vague and indefinite, and that no fresh grounds of detention were served upon the detenu after Government's order dated the 10th april had been passed. Only the last of the three objections mentioned above was pressed before us and this objection alone is sufficient in my opinion to enable us to decide the present case.