THAKUR MADAN SINGH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition by Thakur Madansingh under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India.

(2.) THE petitioner has been detained under the orders (hereinafter to be referred to as the impugned order) of the District Magistrate, Sikar (hereinafter to be referred to as the District Magistrate) dated the 18th of December, 1955, under sec. 3 (1) read with sec. 3 (2) of the Preventive Detention Act, 1950 (Act No. IV of 1950, as amended upto date) (herein after to referred to as the Act) on the ground that it was necessary to detain him with a view to preventing him from acting in a manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order. After his detention the grounds of his detention were served on him as required by sec. 7 of the Act. THEse grounds are contained in Annexure B and are 21 in number. THE petitioner presented this petition before this Court on the 6th of January, 1956. His allegations are that he is one of the founder of 'ram Rajya Parishad', a political body in opposition to the Congress and was an active worker and organiser of the said Party in Rajasthan. In the last general elections, in the year 1952, he took vigorous steps throughout the whole of Rajasthan in support of the candidates of Ram Rajya Parishad and it was mainly through his efforts that 28 candidates of the said party and many other independent candidates were elected to the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly and formed a strong opposition party within the said Assembly under the name and style of Sanyukt Dal. ' He says that he is also the President of Bhooswami Sangh, a body representing the land holders of Rajasthan and that on account of his political activities which were and are of peaceful and non-violent nature, the petitioner has been an eye-sore of the Congress Ministry of Rajasthan in particular and the Congress leaders thereof in general. According to him it is on account of the above mentioned reasons that he was first detained by the orders of Sri Z. S. Jhala, District Magistrate, Jaipur dated the 15th June, 1955, under the same provisions of the Act but was afterwards released on an agreement being arrived at between the Government of Rajasthan and the representatives of Bhooswami Sangh. According to this agreement the Government promised to appoint a committee to consider the demands of land-holders and that committee was to include some representatives of Bhooswami Sangh. This agreement was not honoured by the Government and the petitioner, in order to clarify the position, informed several representatives of Bhooswami Sangh at several places in Rajasthan inclusive of Sikar. It has been suggested that the impugned order has been issued in order to avenge the action of the petitioner informing the representatives of Bhooswami Sangh about the non-fulfilment of the agreement of June, 1955, by the Government. He impugns his detention order principally on the following grounds - (1) That in the order of detention no place of detention has been mentioned and, therefore, it is invalid; (2) That most of the grounds relate to the past activities on the basis of which he was detained by Mr. Jhala in June, 1955. THEy are not relevant to his present detention; (3) That the grounds of Annexture B excepting ground No. 15 relate to the alleged activities of the petitioner outside the district of Sikar and the District Magistrate had, therefore, no power to take those grounds into consideration in making the present detention order; (4) That the grounds served on the petitioner are irrelevant and vague and are not sufficient for making an effective representation by the petitioner at the earliest possible moment and (5) That even if only some of the grounds are irrelevant and vague, the order of detention cannot be maintained even though there may be other grounds which are sufficient for making an effective representation.

(3.) DEALING with the grounds from the point of view of vagueness, we need not take up the grounds one by one as, in our opinion, with the exception of the following grounds all other grounds are such as give sufficient particulars for the purpose of giving the detenu the earliest possible opportunity of making a representation against the impugned order under Art. 22 (5) of the Constitution read with sec. 7 of the Act. The grounds which we consider to be insufficient for the purpose of giving of such opportunity to the petitioner are as follows - Ground No. 3 - In this ground although the dates of the meetings have been given but it has not been said as to what was the language or the gist thereof from which it was concluded that the audience was incited to open violence under the garb of Satyagrah, Satyagrah by itself does not necessarily involve any violence. Some language must have been used advocating Satyagrah from; which the District Magistrate inferred that the audience was incited to open violence under the garb of Satyagrah. If the words or the gist thereof had been given in the ground, it may have been possible for the petitioner to represent that the language used was incapable of inciting the audience to open violence. By not giving the language or the gist thereof in this ground, the District Magistrate denied the petitioner an earliest opportunity of making an effective representation against this ground. Ground No. 4 - In this ground nothing has been said as to on what dates the cyclostyled leaflets captioned Ran Behri were distributed. The only thing that has been said is that an agitation was elate on organised at Jaipur under the guidance and supervision of the petitioner and on that account a number of cyclostyled leaflets captioned Ram Behri were prepared and distributed. The word 'laser on' is very vague. If any dates had been mentioned, it would have been open to the petitioner to plead that on those dates he was not even present at Jaipur. There is still vaguer statement in this ground that "most of the other Ran Bheris were also of a similarly provocative character defaming the Government etc, etc. " It does not disclose what was the number of Ran Bheris and what was contained in those Ran Bheris. Only the contents of Ran Bheri No. 2 have been given. So far as the other Ran Bheris are concerned, not even gist thereof has been given. The only thing that has been said is that they were of provocative character defaming the Government and officials and preaching violence. These expressions may be sufficient for the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority. But they are certainly not sufficient to give the detenu an earliest opportunity of making a representation against them. If the contents of these Ran Bheirs or atleast the gist thereof had been quoted as in the case of Ran Bheri No. 2, it might have been possible for the petitioner to show that there was no trace in them of any incitement to violence or to disturb public order. The petitioner was certainly denied an opportunity to make an effective representation against this ground by couching it in a vague language. Ground No. l0 - In this ground it has been said that the petitioner after his release from detention in June, 1955, has ever since been acting in a manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order which would be evident from the following ground. The validity of this ground from the point of view of giving an earliest opportunity to the detenu for making a representation under Art. 22 (5) of the Constitution and sec. 7 of the Act depends upon the grounds that follow. In ground No. 11 to 15, particulars such as dates, the gist of the speech etc. had been given and, therefore, it cannot be said that the particulars were not sufficient for giving the petitioner an earliest opportunity of making an effective representation against the impugned order. In ground No. 16 no dates have been given. It has not been made clear at what places directions were given by the petitioner. It has not been shown in what places in Rajasthan, workers have since been acting according to the directions of the petitioner and establishing branches of Bhooswami Sangh This ground too is vague to give the earliest opportunity to the petitioner of making an effective representation against the impugned order. In grounds Nos. 17, 18, 19 and 20, dates have been, the places have also been given and the gists of the speeches wherever necessary have been given. Other sufficient particulars have also been given which might enable the petitioner to make an effective representation at the earliest possible moment against the impugned order. Grounds Nos. 2 and 5 to 8 also give sufficient particulars, viz. , dates, places and gist of the speeches. It has not been shown that in what way they were insufficient to give the petitioner an earliest opportunity of making an effective representation against the impugned order Ground No. 9 is simply a statement of fact showing that the petitioner was ordered to be detained under the Preventive Detention Act by the order of the District Magistrate, Jaipur. No representation could be made against this statement of fact.