SURINDER SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner who was detained under Section 3 of the National Security Act, 1980 vide order dated 29th of July, 1986, impugns his detention primarily on the ground that his statutory representation has not been disposed of expeditiously and on that account his detention has been rendered void. In order to appreciate this contention, the following facts which are not disputed and are otherwise available from Government record, deserve to be noticed.

(2.) THE representation in question was received by the State Government on 26th of August 1986. The same was forwarded to the District Magistrate, Amritsar, on the same day for his comments. Since the latter failed to deal with the matter urgently, he was issued remainders to send his comments to 3rd September, 4th September and 5th September. It was only on 8th September, 1986 that he responded to the urgent message sent by the Government and submitted his comments. The matter was then referred to the Law Department for its opinion which was expressed by the next day i.e. 9th of September, 1986. Then once again,the file started travelling from one table to another in the Secretariat and it was only on 16th September, 1986 that the representation was finally rejected by the Chief Minister. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that firstly, there is no explanation as to why the District Magistrate could not deal with the matter from 26th of August, 1986, when the representation was received by him per special messenger till 8th of September, 1986, and again why could not the State Government deal and dispose of the matter expeditiously from 9th of September, 1986 to 16th September, 1986. In order to sustain his stand, he relies on the following observations of the Supreme Court in Harish Pahwa v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others 1982(1) C.L.R. 65:-