HARBANS SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CHARANJIT Singh son of Sadhu Singh, resident of village Samrai, Tehsil Phillaur, District Jalandhar, is being detained in terms of detention order Annexure P-2 dated 16.9.1988 based on grounds of detention Annexure P-3 under Section 3(1) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974. Detenu made representation against his detention on 24.10.1988 which was received by the jail authorities as late as on 11.11.1988. Jail Superintendent admittedly detained the representation unnecessarily for 18 long days. Factual position obtaining in this regard has been duly conceded in paragraph 9 of the reply which reads :-

(2.) IN Criminal Writ Petition No. 6 of 1989 filed by Harbans Singh, father-in-law of the detenu, the sole point pressed at the stage of arguments is the indifference, slackness and callous attitude on the part of the Jail Superintendent in unnecessarily withholding the representation of the detenu for an inordinately long period of 18 days and the resultant violation of Article 2(5) of the Constitution of India because the representation put in by the detenu could not be decided by the Detaining Authority with utmost expedition envisaged in law.

(3.) THUS when it is emphasised and re-emphasised by a serious of decisions of this Court that a representation should be considered with reasonable expedition, it is imperative on the part of every authority, whether in merely transmitting or dealing with it, to discharge the obligation with all reasonable promptness and diligence without giving room for any complaint or remissness, indifference or avoidable delay because the delay, caused by slackness on the part of any authority, will ultimately result in the delay of the disposal of the representation which in turn may invalidate the order of detention as having infringed the mandate of Article 22(5) of the Constitution. A contention similar to one pressed before us was examined by this court in Vijay Kumar's case (supra) wherein the facts were that the representation of the detenu therein dated 29.7.1981 was forwarded to Government by the Superintendent of Jail on the same day by post followed by a wireless message, but according to the Government, the representation was not received by them. Thereafter, a duplicate copy was sent by the Jail Superintendent on being requested and the same was received by Government on 12.8.1981. Considering the time lag of 14 days in the given circumstances of that case, this court though overlooked the same and allowed the Writ Petition on the subsequent time lag, made the following observation :-