SANSAR SINGH Vs. STATE OF J&K

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this Habeas Corpus petition, the petitioner seeks to challenge his preventive detention u/s 8 of the Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 hereinafter the Act ordered by District Magistrate, Jammu, vide his order dated 8 6 -1981, with a view to preventing the petitioner from acting in any manner prejudicial to the security of the State. The grounds of detention which were served upon him on 17 -6 -1981 read as under : -

(2.) THE challenge has been thrown upon the grounds. firstly, that the petitioner having been arrested on 8 -6 -1981, the grounds were served upon him on 17 -6 -1981 i. e. more than five days after his detention which constituted a violation of Article 22 5 of the Constitution as also of Section 10 1 of the Act; secondly, that there was non -compliance with Article 22 5 inasmuch as the petitioner being conversant with Hindi only the grounds of detention were served upon him in Urdu, which prevented him from making an effective representation against his detention ; thirdly, that no copies of the documents relied upon by the detaining authority for ordering his detention were supplied to the petitioner in terms of Article 225 ; fourthly, that almost all the grounds of detention were either vague or irrelevant ; fifthly, that there has been inordinate delay on the part of the District Magistrate in passing the detention order and on the part of the Government in disposing of his representation ; and sixthly, that the detention was malafide, being clearly traceable to the past enmity between the petitioner and Bhagat Harichand Dy. S. P. CID. The order of detention was no doubt issued by the District Magistrate on 8 -6 -1981, but it could not be served upon the petitioner before 15 -5 1981. This is borne out from the affidavit of Shri Chaman Lal Dogra, Inspector CID Jammu, who had arrested the petitioner in execution of the aforesaid warrant on 15 -6 -1981. The grounds of detention having been admittedly served upon him in Central Jail on 17 -6 -1981, i. e. within two days from his detention, there could be no violation of either Section 13 1 of the Act or Article 22 5 of the Constitution.

(3.) THE petitioner is a resident of the State of Jammu and Kashmir and is a Rajput by caste. There can thus no manner of doubt that he is conversant with Dogri, a dialect almost universally spoken in Jammu Province of the State of Jammu and Kashmir by its non -Muslim residents. The grounds of detention were explained to him, as is borne out from his affidavit by Th. Milkhi Singh Assistant Superintendent, Central Jail, Jammu, in two languages, namely, Urdu and Dogri, which the petitioner fully understood. Not only that a copy of the grounds of detention was also supplied to him in Urdu. There has been thus sufficient compliance with Article 22 5. The plea that he can understand only Hindi is clearly an after -thought which has been for the first time taken by the petitioner in his amended petition, in his initial petition he has admitted that he is In punjabi speaking person and punjabi, it is common knowledge is almost similar to Dogri. It is, therefore, established that the grounds of detention were fully explained to the petitioner in the language he clearly understood.