- (1.) THIS and the other petitions, 28 in the number, have been filed by the respective petitioners against the orders of detention passed against them on various dates after the 25th of June, 1975. Except in Petition No. 138 of 1975, no counsel appeared. However, out of the petitioners, three of them, namely, Shilkumar Nigam, M. D. Chandwaskar and U. C. Porwal, happen to be lawyers and all the petitioners who were present in person submitted that they have nothing further to argue except what has been submitted by the three petitioners named above in connection with their own petitions.
(2.) BROADLY speaking, the orders of detention of all those petitioners can be categorized into three categories : (i) Initially they were arrested under section 151 of the Code of Criminal procedure and preceedings under section 107 of the Code were launched and subsequently, after the amendment of the Maintenance of Internal Security act, a declaration as contemplated by the amended Act was issued. (ii) The orders were issued under section 3 of the Maintenance of internal Security Act mentioning the grounds in some cases and subsequently after the amendment of the Act a declaration under the amended Act was issued. (iii) The orders were passed after the amendment of Maintenance of internal Security Act and declaration as contemplated under this Act were issued.
(3.) IN all these petitions, preliminary objections have been raised on behalf of the State Government, and they are : (1) That in view of the Proclamation of Emergency by the President on 25th June 1975 and in view of the subsequent order of the President under article 359 of the Constitution, dated 27th June 1975, the rights guaranteed to the petitioners under Articles 14, 21, 22 and 19 of the Constitution are suspended. And because of the order of the President dated 27th June 1975, their right to move the Court also has been suspended and therefore these petitions cannot be entertained. (2) The second objection raised by the State Government is that the maintenance of Internal Security (Amendment) Ordinance, which subsequently was passed into an Act, by section 7 thereof, has suspended any right to liberty under any other law during the continuance of the Emergency and on this basis, therefore, it was contended that these petitions do not deserve to be considered on merits. ;