BALWINDER SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, who is stated to be a Carpenter by profession, was arrested in a case bearing FIR No. 21 dated February 9, 1993 registered under various Sections of the Penal Code, Official Secretes Act and Section 85 of the Gold Control Act, at Police Station, Kotwali, Kapurthala. He was released on bail on March 5, 1993, but was, thereafter, arrested by the Customs Authorities under Section 135 of Customs Act and was granted bail in that case as well as vide order dated April 8, 1993, Annexure P-1 to the petition. It has further been averred by him in the petition that during the course of his release on bail, he attended various hearings in the criminal cases against him, but on January 13, 1994, he was arrested by the Amritsar police and sent to Central Jail, Amritsar, where he was told to his utmost surprise that detention order No. 1/1/94-3HIII (COFEPOSA)/32 dated January 13, 1994, under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (hereinafter called 'the Act') had been passed against him. This order has been appended as Annexure P-3 to this petition. The petitioner, thereafter, filed a representation, which too, was rejected by the State Government as also by the Central Government. Aggrieved thereby, the petitioner has come to this Court by way of writ of Hebeas Corpus.

(2.) THE primary grievance of the petitioner is that the detention order had been passed after a long delay of about nine months from the date of his bail on April 8, 1993, and as such this order was liable to be quashed on this score alone. Elaborating the argument it has been argued that though the sponsoring authority had moved the case for his detention under the Act on June 30, 1993, the formal orders had been passed as late as on January 13, 1994. The learned counsel has urged that this delay in passing of the detention order from the last prejudicial activity had not been explained by the respondents in their replies.

(3.) THE gist of the aforesaid quotation would indicate that an attempt has been made to explain the delay but there appears to be certain gaps which to my mind, appear to vitiate the detention order. It would be noticed that the proposal for detention was sponsored to the State Government on June 30, 1993 and was received in the relevant department on July 1, 1993. The proposal was, thereafter, examined on July 6, 1993 and again on July 12, 1993, additional information was sought from the sponsoring authority. It has been stated that some time was taken to translate the original documents which were in Punjabi and also to type out the material, the case was examined on August 17, 1993 by the legal agency in the light of the information received from the sponsoring authority on August 10, 1993. It will be seen here that there is a gap of almost one month between July 12, 1993 when the letter was written to the sponsoring authority for additional information and the despatch of that information on August 10, 1993. It further appears that some clarification pertaining to the additional information was called from the sponsoring authority vide letter dated September 11, 1993, which again indicates a gap of one month from the receipt of the earlier letter. There is yet another gap of one month between November 11, 1993 and December 8, 1993 when the case was examined on these two dates and another of 28 days when it was reprocessed on the next date. Some additional information was again called on December 9, 1993 and this information too was received on December 23, 1993. Keeping in view the above facts the learned counsel for the petitioner has relied on T.A. Abdul Rehman v. State of Kerala, 1989(2) Recent Criminal Reports 459 : AIR 1990 SC 225 in which it has been observed :