GAYA SINGH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India arises out of an order purporting to be passed by the District Magistrate of Patna under Sub-section (2) of Section 3 of the Preventive Detention Act, 1950, directing the detention of the petitioner with a view to preventing him from acting in a manner prejudicial to the security of the State and maintenance of public order. The petitioner is the President of the Bihar State Students Federation and it appears that he was at first arrested on 7-12-1966 in connection with four cases of Gardanibagh Police Station and seven cases of Patna Kotwali Police Station, which have been specified in paragraph 2 of the petition. He was granted bail by the Subdivisional Magistrate of Patna Sadar in all the cases except one of the Gardanibagh P. S. cases in which he was granted bail by the Sessions Judge of Patna. After some delay in verification of the bail bonds, he was released from jail on 1-2-1967, but was re-arrested at the jail gate on the same day as per detention order dated 30-1-1967 passed by the District Magistrate under the Preventive Detention Act. A copy of the detention order, as embodied in Annexure 'A' of the petition, was duly served upon the petitioner and, subsequently, he was also served with the statement of grounds of the detention order and the same has been annexed to the supplementary affidavit filed by the petitioner on 7-2-1967. The correctness of some of the facts stated in the statement of grounds supplied to the petitioner hap been denied by him and the other grounds are alleged by him to be vague and irrelevant. A further allegation was made by him to the effect that as he had been working against the Chief Minister, Shri K.B. Sahay, who is a candidate from Patna West Assembly Constituency in the coming General Elections, and the Bihar State Students Federation had decided to work against Congress candidates and specially against Shri K.B. Sahay, this was the cause of the wrath of the Chief Minister against the petitioner as well as other students and their leaders and the order in question had been issued at the Instance and for the electoral benefit of the Chief Minister Shri K.B. Sahay.

(2.) In the counter-affidavit, filed on behalf of the respondents, the allegations about the aforesaid act of the petitioner and the decision of the Students Federation having caused wrath to the Chief Minister against the petitioner and other students and their leaders and the detention order having been issued at the instance and for the electoral benefit of Shri K.B. Sahay has been denied. The allegation regarding vagueness of the grounds have also been denied and some matters referred to in the supplementary affidavit filed by the petitioner have been referred to as being irrelevant. It was conceded on behalf of the petitioner that as the allegations as to the detention order being mala fide in fact and having been issued at the instance and for the electoral benefit of Shri K.B. Sahay are denied, it is not necessary to enter into this question We are, therefore, only concerned with the question as to whether the detention order has been validly made in accordance with law. For this purpose, it is necessary to mention in detail the ground supplied to the petitioner on basis of which the detention order in question was passed by the District Magistrate of Patna. These grounds are as follows:

(3.) On 1-12-66 you addressed an open meeting of the Chhatra Sangh at Muzaffarpur. You advised the students not to allow any of the Ministers to address public meetings in case their processions and meeting were not allowed due to promulgation of order Under Section 144 Cr.P.C. You also advised the students individually to act as leader in case the leaders were arrested. The present students' unrest and agitation is mainly due to your instigation and that of your fellow workers. You instigate the students and also the members of the public to resort to subversive activities which are prejudicial to the security of the State and maintenance of the public order. It is unnecessary to refer to all the decisions on the subject, for it is now well settled by various decisions of the Supreme Court including the decision in Naresh Chandra Ganguli v. State of West Bengal, AIR 1959 SC 1335 that under Clause (5) of Article 22 of the Constitution, a person against whom a detention order is passed, has two distinct, though interrelated, rights namely, (i) right to be informed of the grounds on which the order of detention has been made and (ii) right to be enabled at the earliest opportunity to make a representation against the order. The grounds which have rational connection with the objects mentioned in Section 3 of the Act have to be supplied to the petitioner and as soon as that is done, the first condition of valid detention is complied with. The second condition of such detention is fulfilled only after the detenu is supplied with such information as will enable him to make a representation. Therefore, if there is infringement of either the two rights and 'any of the conditions precedent to the valid detention, as aforesaid, has not been fulfilled, the detenu has a right to approach Court for a writ in the nature of habeas corpus. It is also well settled that the satisfaction of the detaining authority to which Section 3(1)(a) refers is his subjective satisfaction and so it is not justiciable. It is, therefore, not open to the Court to consider the question as to whether the said satisfaction of the detaining authority can be justified by the application of objective tests. The reasonableness of the satisfaction of the detaining authority can-not be questioned in a Court of law; the adequacy of the material on which the said satisfaction purports to rest also cannot be examined in a Court of law (Vide AIR 1964 SC 334, Rameshwar Shaw v. District Magistrate, Burdwan). It is also well settled, however, that if any of the grounds furnished to the detenu are found to be irrelevant while considering the application of Clauses (i) to (iii) of Section 3(1)(a) and in that sense are foreign to the Act, the satisfaction of the detaining authority on which the order of detention is based Is open to challenge and the detention order is liable to be quashed. Similarly, if some of the grounds supplied to the detenu are so vague that they would virtually deprive the detenu of his statutory right of making a representation, that may again introduce a serious infirmity in the order of detention. If, however, the grounds on which the order of detention proceeds are relevant and germane to the matters which fall to be considered under Section 3(1)(a), it would not be open to the detenu to challenge the order of detention by arguing that the satisfaction of the detaining authority is not reasonably based on any of the said grounds (Vide the aforesaid case of Rameshwar Shaw, AIR 1964 SC 334). The only other case to which reference may be made is the case of Dwarka Das Bhatia v. State of Jammu and Kashmir, AIR 1957 SC 184. After referring to the earlier decision of the Supreme Court in Dr. Ram Krishan Bhardwaj v. State of Delhi, AIR 1953 SC 318 and Shibban Lal Saksena v. State of U.P., AIR 1954 SC 179, the following observations were made in this cases :-