MADAN LAL Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are applications under Section 491, Criminal P. G. for securing the release of persons who have been detained under orders which purport to be orders under Clause (iii) of Section 3 (1) (a), Preventive Detention Act, 1950 (Act IV [4] of 1950). With regard to each of the detenus by or on whose behalf these applications have been filed the State Govt. feel satisfied that if he is allowed to remain at large, he will indulge in activities to the prejudice of the maintenance of supplies & services essential to the community & it is therefore that their detention has been ordered. The case of each of these detenus will be separately dealt with, & we have to examine the grounds of detention served on each of them. But before I take up the case of each & every detenu for a separate treatment it is necessary for me to refer to the questions of law that are common to all or some of these applications. The first important contention is that the alleged activities of these applicants do not attract the operation of Clause (iii) of Sub-section (1) (a) of Section 3, Preventive Detention Act, & that this provision of law was not intended to cover a case of this nature. The second important contention which has been urged on behalf of those detenus against whom prosecutions were started under Section 7, Essential Supplies ( Temporary Powers) Act, 1946, is that their detentions are mala fide inasmuch as the State Govt. having found that the evidence against them was too weak to support a prosecution passed orders for their detention applying Clause (iii) of Section 3 (1) (a), Preventive Detention Act. On behalf of those detenus against whom no prosecutions were started it is contended that when they could be prosecuted on the facts alleged it was not open to the State Govt. to detain them according to the provisions of the Preventive Detention Act on those very facts. And on behalf of those detenus against whom prosecutions were pending on the day the orders for their detention were passed, it is con-tended that it was wrong for the State Govt. to detain them while the prosecutions were pending.

(2.) So far as this Court is concerned, the first point now stands concluded by our recent decision in Dayanand Modi v. State of Bihar, the judgment of which was delivered on 5-1-1951. My learned brother has exhaustively dealt with the question, & I have agreed with him in overruling the contention that such activities do not attract) the operation of Clause (iii) of Section 3 (1) (a), Preventive Detention Act. In Section 3 not only the word "supplies" but also the word "services" has been used, & as pointed out by my learned brother in his judgment in the cases of Dayanand Modi & others, a supply of food or cloth which is essential to the community has a service aspect as well. In my opinion, the learned counsel were wrong in interpreting the word "service" so narrowly as they did. The dictionary meaning of the word "service" has to be appreciated, & according to the New English Dictionary, edited by Sir James Murray, LL. D., (Oxford publication), one of the meanings given to the word "service" is the act of waiting at table or dishing of food & also the manner in which this is done. The use of the word "maintenance" in Clause (iii) of Section 3 (1) (a) of the Act has also to be appreciated, & it need hardly be pointed out that acts of blackmarketing or hoarding must affect the maintenance of supply & service essential to the community. The several entries in the Legislative List have never been regarded as water-tight compartments, & a particular act can be covered by more than one item in those lists. The first important contention on behalf of these detenus must, therefore, be now rejected as untenable.

(3.) The second point is also now concluded because of our decision in the case of Dayanand Modi & others & also in the cases of Subodh Kumar Singh & Kishori Prasanna Sinha, Cri. Misc. Nos. 626 & 627 of 1950 decided by us on 21-12-1950. It is not a rule o law that when a person is accused of an offence the only alternative is to prosecute him, & there is no legal authority to detain him. As was pointed out by Lokur J. in Gajanan Krishna v. Emperor, A.I.R. (32) 1945 Bom. 533 at p. 536: