SAKALDEO SINGH Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner claims himself to be the General Secretary of the Bihar Janta Khan Mazdoor Sangh, the central office whereof is situated at Sijua, Police Station Jogta, District Dhanbad. Initially, this application was filed with a prayer for quashing an unknown order of preventive detention under the National Security Act (hereafter referred to as 'the Act') by the Government of Bihar and a prayer was also made therein that during the pendency of the application, the arrest of the petitioner should remain stayed.

(2.) This application was admitted by order dated 7th Jan., 1987, and was directed to be heard on 19th of Jan., 1987, as the first case subject to part-heard, if any, before an appropriate Bench. It appears that in the meantime the petitioner was arrested in pursuance of an order of detention passed by the District Magistrate, Dhanbad, which has been described as unknown order in the initial petition and the ground of detention was served on him. A supplementary affidavit was, thereafter, filed on behalf of the petitioner stating certain more facts with several annexures. By order dated 9th Feb., 1987, it was directed that the supplementary affidavit of the petitioner shall be taken into consideration along with the main case. But by order dated 19th March, 1987, it was observed that as this writ application had already been admitted, no useful purpose was to be served in directing the petitioner to file a writ application afresh challenging the same order of detention after his arrest. Accordingly, this application along with the supplementary affidavit was treated as an application for a writ of Habeas Corpus and the State was directed to file counter-affidavit on merit as well as on the question of delay in disposal of the representation filed on behalf of the petitioner.

(3.) The relevant facts are that the learned District Magistrate, Dhanbad, passed Order No. 1 dared 2nd Jan., 1986, in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-s. (2) of S.3 of the Act read with Notification No. 1796/C dated 15th Oct., 1985, of the Government of Bihar, directing that this petitioner be detained and be placed in Dhanbad jail. A copy of the order passed by the District Magistrate has been annexed as Annexure-7 and Annexure-11 is the copy of the ground for such detention. Annexure-11 discloses that in pursuance of S.8 of the Act, the petitioner was being informed that he had been ordered to be detained under the orders of the District Magistrate, Dhanbad, being No. 1 dated 2nd Jan., 1986, on the ground as mentioned in this annexure. Now, for all practical purposes, these two annexures, namely, Annexures-7 and 11 are sought to be quashed by the petitioner. Other facts are that the order of detention passed by the District Magistrate, Dhanbad, was approved by the State Government on 10th Jan., 1986, but since the petitioner could not be apprehended till 16th. Jan., 1987, when he was arrested, the detention order was served on him on that very date i.e. on 16th Jan., 1987. The ground of detention was served on the petitioner on 19th Jan., 1987. According to the petitioner, he made a representation to the State Government against his detention order by his application dated 27th. Jan., 1987, as contained in Annexures-12 and 12-A. The representation of the petitioner was received by the office of the Chief Secretary, Government of Bihar, on 30th Jan., 1987. The representation of the petitioner was ultimately disposed of by the State Government and the petitioner was communicated with the result of the representation on 4th March, 1987, that his representation had been rejected. In these circumstances, at this moment, the petitioner is under detention in pursuance of Annexure-7 passed by the District Magistrate, Dhanbad.