- (1.) I. P. Singh, J. Vir Abhimanyu alias Biren Yadav petitioner (hereinafter referred to as the detenu) has filed the present writ petition to challenge the vali dity of the detention order, dated 15-1-1985 passed by Sri K. K. Gupta who has signed the said order as District Magistrate, Fatehpur (hereinafter referred to as the detaining authority) under Section 3 (2) of the National Security Act (65 of 1980) (hereinafter referred to as the Act; with a view to preventing him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order.
(2.) AFTER hearing the learned counsel from both sides, we are of the opinion that it would not be necessary to go into all the points taken and detailed in the writ petition because it can be effectively disclosed of on a short point to be discussed hereinafter. The learned counsel for the detenu has challenged that Sri K. K. Gupta, who had signed the detention order in question as District Magistrate, Fatehpur, was, in fact, not holding that office on that date. i. e. 15-1-1985, and as such, the detention order was passed by an authority lacking jurisdiction to pass it, and, as such, was ab initio a bad and invalid order. Our attention was drawn by the learned counsel for the respondents to the Notification No. 2012/do- 1-85-4/1 (15)84, Lucknow : dated 6th April, 1985 Annexure to the counter-affidavit of Chandrapal Singh, Upper Division Assistant in Confidential Section-6, U. P. Secretariat, Lucknow. The said Notification conferred on Sri K. K. Gupta the powers of Collector, Fatehpur and the desig nation and powers of District Magistrate, Fatehpur under Section 20 (1), Cr. P. C. , 1973 with retrospective effect from 10-1-1985 to 29-1-1985.
(3.) THUS it bears out that on 15-1-1985 the said powers were not possessed him They came to be possessed by him by virtue of the above notification dated 6-4-1985 retrospectively. The question arises as to whether such retrospective conferment of powers would validate the detention order, dated 15-1- 1985 when Sri K. K. Gupta did not enjoy those powers as a matter of fact. In our considered opinion, the powers under Section 3 (2) of the Act could only be exercised by the officer who enjoyed the powers of District Magis trate on that particular day. If on the relevant date the particular officer did not enjoy these powers, then certainly he had no jurisdiction to pass the detention order under said Section 3 (2 ). Subsequent conferment of that power on the particular officer would not validate the detention order passed by him when he did not enjoy those powers.;