GIRDHAR MALVIYA, J. - (1.) In all these writ petitions it is not disputed by the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned Additional Government Advocate that the petitioners have since been released. As a matter of fact a plea has been taken by the respondents in all the counter affidavits, as also through their counsel Shri Jagdish Tiwari, learnedS Additional Government Advocate, that since in all these petitions the petitioners have been released the writ petitions have become infructuous.
(2.) However, learned counsel for the petitioners have time and again submitted that they want to argue these writ petitions on the point of relief for grant of compensation. This Bench made it clear to the learned counsel for the petitioners that since the writ petitions at this stage were not being contested by the respondents, this Bench was not at all inclined to the writ petitions on the question whether the petitioners were entitled to compensation or not, more so as the petitioners could always approach the Civil Court for compensation on the ground of illegal detention if they could make out a case in that regard. Arguing the case of Shri Vinay Katiyar. Shri Daya Shankar Misra, contended that the detention of the petitioner was illegal. However, he was told that since the respondents were not contesting the petition and did not propose to justify the detention of the petitioner, consequently, it was not necessary to examine whether the detention at any point of time earlier was legal or not. Shri Daya Shankar Misra, learned counsel for the petitioners insisted that he still wanted to establish that the petitioners had been illegally detained so that it could be argued that the petitioners were entitled to get adequate compensation.
(3.) Normally in petitions of Habeas Corpus what the Court has to examine is whether the petitioners on the date of hearing are under detention without any authority of law. Once it is found that the petitioners are no longer under detention, it remains no longer necessary for the Court to exercise its jurisdiction to examine whether the detention of the petitioners at any point of time earlier was valid or not, merely to decide thereafter whether the petitioners could also be awarded compensation for any such illegal detention. Except in Habeas Corpus Petition No. 254142 of 1990, wherein order under Section 107 Cr. PC has been challenged, the petitioners in these writ petitions have been detained under same law of preventive detention. In this connection it is now well known that the power to detain under the National Security Act etc is a power which has to be exercised on suspicion in order to prevent recurrence of such activity by any such person which may affect the maintenance of public order. It is for one of these objects that an order under a preventive detention act is passed. Section 16 of the National Security Act, 1980, provides as follows :- "No suit or other legal proceeding shall lie against the Central Government or a State Government and no suit, prosecution or other legal proceeding shall lie against any person, for any thing in good faith done or intended to be done in pursuance of this Act." Consequently, we are not inclined to hear learned counsel for the petitioners on the question of validity of petitioner's detention which is no longer continuing. The preventive detention orders were passed during the regime of a different government. The argument in this case for the sole purpose to consider the question of compensation to the petitioners by the present State Government, which is no longer contesting the petition makes no sense.;