R RAMANATHAN Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, R. Ramanathan, was arrested under the provisions of the Madras Maintenance of Public Order Act, 1947, on 1st April 1948 at 6 A. M. in be yapettah. He was taken to the Royapettah Police station and thence to the Madras Penitentiary where he was detained. The detention was under the orders of the Commissioner of Police, Madras, who on the same day intimated to the Government the fact of the issue of the order of detention along with the grounds for detention. The grounds were despatched by the Provincial Government to the Central Jail, Yellore, for service on the petitioner on 34th April 1948. In the affidavit filed by a friend of the detenu it is stated that Rama-nathan had been working as Joint Secretary of the Madras Provincial Trade Union Congress, and that for ten years he was doing trade union work and as such was carrying on lawful activities connected with the M. P. T. U. 0. A further ground was taken in that affidavit that the order of detention was passed by the Commissioner on 1st April 1948 after the arrest and not before, and that he could have had no reasonable grounds for suspecting that the petitioner was acting in a manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order. That plea was, however, not pressed at the time of the hearing of this application, and consequently it was necessary to examine the Commissioner as it was done in other cases. It has to be presumed that the re. quirements of the section, as far as the procedure is concerned, were duly fulfilled by the detaining authority.

(2.) AFTER the grounds were served, as previously stated, upon the petitioner in the Vellore Jail, a supplemental communication was sent by the Provincial Government to the detenu on 14th May 1948 containing further grounds. It is not clear under what necessity or provocation the subsequent communication was sent.

(3.) THE original grounds are to the following effect: He came to Madras in 1940 and who in contact with S. M. Ramiith, a staunch Communist, After the round up of Communists in March 1941 in the City be established contact with the Youth League in the City in order to rally Sha anti-Imperialist elements and to reorganise the Communist groups. He joined his brother B. H. Nathan, a Communist deportee from Malaya. He held secret meetings to revive Communist activities. He is In contact with the leaders of the Communist controlled labour unions in the City and is responsible for strikes in the City, He is an active Communist worker and the Joint Secretary of the Madras Provincial Trade Union Congress, There is in them a certain amount of vagueness, and most of the facts that are referred to appear to be nearly a decade old. The material part of the grounds is that the detenu held secret meetings to revive Communist activities, that he was in contact with the leaders of the Communist-controlled Labour unions in the City, and that he was responsible for strikes in the City. It is also urged that he is an active Communist worker and Joint Secretary of the Madras Pro-vincial Trade Union Congress, which fact is not denied. There is thus very little in the original grounds to show that any authority could have been reasonably satisfied upon those grounds that the person of that description fell within the mischief of Section 2 (1) (a ). It is not alleged that the Madras Provincial Trade Union Congress is an unlawful body on is engaged in activities of a prejudicial nature; nor is it alleged that or-ganising of strikes per se is unlawful, so long as they are conducted in a peaceful manner without any interference with the lawful exercise of rights by the public and by the respective authorities. Even otherwise, the statement that' the detenu held secret meetings and was in contact with Communist-controlled labour unions is bald and does not convey any clear impression as to when be was concerned in those activities with reference to the date of the order o{ detention.