SUKHPAL SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SUKHPAL Singh and Mohin-der Kaur, son and, wife respectively of the detenu Sukhjinder Singh, have sought the quashing of the rules framed under Section 5 (a) of the National Security Act (Act 65 of 1980), hereinafter referred to as the Act, by the States of Punjab and Haryana providing therein the conditions of detention, inter alia, pertaining to the grant of interview to the detenu, his counsel and relatives on the ground of being unreasonable and thus violative of Article 21. of lie Constitution of India.

(2.) THE detenu after his arrest, in the first instance, was detained in the Central Jail, Ambala, on the morning of Oct. 5, 1983 wherefrom he was transferred to some jail in Orissa. When petitioner No. 1 challenged through Criminal Writ No. 466 of 1983 the confinement of the detenu at such a distant place from his residence in Punjab, the State of Punjab agreed to have him. transferred to the Central Jail, Ambala, wherein the detenu now stands interned.

(3.) IT has been asserted in the petition that almost after three weeks of arrest of the detenu, the petitioners went to see him in the Central Jail, Ambala. The Superintendent of the Central Jail, Ambala, refused to grant them interview with the detenu on the plea that he had no order from the detaining authority, that is, the State of Punjab, to grant such an interview. The petitioners thereafter booked a lightening call to the District Magistrate, Kapurthala, so that he might grant permission to them on phone, but the District Magistrate, informed the petitioners that such a permission could only be granted by the Home Secretary. The petitioners then tried to contact the Home Secretary, but to no avail. The petitioners also met the Deputy Commissioner, Ambala, who refused to permit them to have an interview with the detenu, as there were no orders by the State Government to grant such a permission. The petitioners having thus been thwarted in their effort to meet the detenu sought recourse to the aid of the Court by filing the present petition, in which both the sets of relevant rules, one promulgated by the State of Punjab and the other by the State of Haryana, have been reproduced which deserve noticing.