HIDAYATULLAH, C. - (1.) THE Judgment of the court was delivered by
(2.) THE petitioner Arun Ghosh has been detained by the District Magistrate Malda under Section 3(2) of the Preventive Detention Act. THE order was made on 2/06/1969 and he was arrested 99the following day. THE order states that it was made to prevent him fromacting prejudicially to the maintenance of public order. His representationwas rejected by the Advisory Board and also independently by the StateGovernment. We have looked into the case and are satisfied that therewas no undue delay at any stage in dealing with the various aspects of hisdetention as laid down in the Act. It is, however, contended that the grounds which were furnished to him on 3/06/1969 do not bear upon the maintenance of public order or of his acting prejudicially to the maintenance of public order. This is the only point urged in support of the petition by the learned counsel. In the affidavit filed in reply the District Magistrate has summarised the grounds as 'antisocial activities including rioting, assault and undue harassment to respectable young ladies in the public street of Malda town'. The details of these activities are to be found in the grounds and may be summarised as follows : JUDGEMENT_98_1_1970Html1.htm The submission of the counsel is that these are stray acts directed against individuals and are not subversive of public order and therefore the detention on the ostensible ground of preventing him from acting in a mannerprejudicial to public order was not justified. Insupport of this submissionreference is made to three cases of this court : Dr. Ram Manohcr Lohia v. State of Bihar, Pushkar Mukherjee and Others v. State of West Bengal and Shyamat Chakraborty v. The Commissioner of Police, Calcutta and Another In Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia's case this court pointed out the difference between maintenance of law and order and its disturbance and the maintenance of public order and its disturbance. Public order was said to embrace more of the community than law and order. Public order is the even tempo of the lifeof the community taking the country as a whole or even a specified locality.Disturbance of 'public order is to be distinguished from acts directed against individuals which do not disturb the society to the extent of causing a general disturbance of public tranquillity. It is the degree of disturbance and its affect upon the life of the community in a locality which determines whether100 the disturbance amounts only to a breach of law and order. Take forinstance, a man stabs another. People may be shocked and even disturbed,but the life of the community keeps moving at an even tempo, however muchone may dislike the act. Take another case of a town where there is communaltension. A man stabs a member of the other community. This is an actof a very different sort. Its implications are deeper and it affects the even tempo of life and public order is jeopardized because the repercussions of the act embrace large S. of the community and incite them to makefurther breaches of the law and order and to subvert the public order. Anact by itself is not determinant of its own gravity. In its quality it may not differ from another but in its potentiality it may be very different. Take the case of assault on girls. A guest at a hotel may kiss or make advances to half a dozen chamber maids. He may annoy them and also the management but he does not cause disturbance of public order. He may even have a fracas with the friends of one of the girls but even then it would be a case of breach of law and order only. Take another case of a man who molests women in lonely places. As a result of his activities girls going to colleges and schools are in constant danger and fear. Women going for theirordinary business are afraid of being waylaid and assaulted. The activityof this man in its essential quality is not different from the act of the other man but in its potentiality and in its affect upon the public tranquillity there is a vast difference. The act of the man who molests the girls in lonely places causes a disturbance in the even tempo of living which is the first requirement of public order. He disturbs the society and the community. His act makes all the women apprehensive of their honour and he can be said to be causing disturbance of public order and not merely committing individual actions which may be taken note of by the criminal prosecution agencies. It means therefore that the question whether a man has only committed a reach of law and order or has acted in a manner likely tocause a disturbance of the public order is a question of degree and theextent of the breach of the act upon the society. The French distinguish lawand order and public order by designating the latter as order publique. Thelatter expression has been recognised as meaning something more thanordinary maintenance of law and order. Justice Ramaswami in WritPetition No. 179 of 1968 drew a line of demarcation between the serious and aggravated forms of breaches of public order which affect the community or endanger the public interest at large from minor breaches of peace which do not affect the public at large. He drew an analogy between public and private crimes. The analogy is useful but not to be pushed too far. A large number of acts directed against persons or individuals may total up into a breach of public order. In Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia's case examples were given by Sarkar and Hidayatullah, JJ. They show how similar acts in different contexts affect differently law and order on the one hand and public order on the other. It is always a question of degree of the harm and its affect upon the community. The question to ask is : Does it lead to disturbance of the current of life of the community so as to amount a disturbance of the public order or does it affect merely an individual leaving the tranquillity of the society undisturbed. This question has to be faced in every case onfacts. There is no formula by which one case can be distinguished fromanother.
(3.) IN the present case the acts of the petitioner affected the family of Phanindra C. Das and also two other individuals who were assaulted. The case is distinguishable from Writ Petition No. 102 of 1969 where three instances of rioting armed with lathis, iron rods and acid bulbs etc., ware 101held sufficient to disturb the even tempo of public life in that locality and were treated as disturbance of public order. On the other hand in WritPetition No. 179 of 1968 assaults on four persons A, B, C and D and throwinga cracker into a police wireless van were not held to add up to the disturbance of public order. They were treated as separate acts which affected individuals but did not affect the community at large. In the present case all acts of molestation were directed against the family of Phanindra C. Das and were not directed against women in general from the locality. Assaults also were on individuals. The conduct may be reprehensible but it does not add up to the situation where it may be said that the community at large was being disturbed or in other words there was a breach of public order or likelihood of a breach of public order. Thecase falls within the dictum of Justice Ramaswami and the distinctionmade in Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia's case.;