Vinod Prasad and Y.C. Gupta, JJ. - (1.) SRI D.S. Mishra, learned Counsel for the petitioner made a request that he be permitted to delete respondent No. 4, Sen ior Superintendent of Police, Basti, from the array of respondents in this Habeas Corpus Petition as respondent No. 4 is not the relevant authority against whom any relief has been sought in this writ petition. The prayer is allowed. Learned Counsel for the petitioner is directed to delete respon dent No. 4 Superintendent of Police, Basti, from array of parties and renumber re spondent No. 5 as respondent No. 4 during the course of the day.
(2.) SARJU Prasad Shukla, the detenue petitioner, has invoked our extraordinary jurisdiction, under Article 226 of the Con stitution of India, with the prayer to issue a appropriate writ in the nature of Habeas Corpus directing the respondents to pro duce the corpus before this Court and re lease him forthwith by quashing the im pugned detention order dated 5.12.2008 passed by District Magistrate, Basti, which order has been' approved by Secretary (Home), Confidential, U.P. Government, Lucknow (Annexures-1 and 3-A to this Habeas Corpus Petition). Shorn of unnecessarily details, it is recorded here that the petitioner has been detained by District Magistrate, Basti, re spondent No. 3 by exercising his power under section 3(3) of National Security Act vide Annexure No. 1 to this Habeas Corpus Petition, vide his order dated 5.12.2008. Grounds of detention are contained in An nexure No. 1-A to this petition. Detenu petitioner questioned legality of his said detention order by filing a representation vide Annexure No. 2. Since the State Government and Central Government ap proved and countenanced the detention of the petitioner, the petitioner was left with no option but to file this Habeas Corpus Petition to get himself freed from deten tion. We have heard Sri D.S. Mishra, learned Counsel for the petitioner as well as Sri A.K. Rai, learned Counsel for re spondent No. 2 and Sri Sudhir Mehrotra, learned AGA for the State in opposition. The contention of Sri D.S. Mishra lies in a very narrow compass, therefore, without venturing into detailed narration of facts, we record the submission of the learned Counsel for the petitioner.
(3.) LEARNED Counsel for the petitioner contended that looking to the counter affi davit filed by Smt. L.P. Srivastava, on be half of the Union of India, especially para graphs 5 and 6 thereof it is well perceptible that there is absolutely no explanation for the delay occasioned in considering the representation of the detenu by the Union of India. To shorten the contention, we reproduce paragraphs 5, and 6 of the counter affidavit filed by Union of India below: - 5. The allegations made in paras No. 5, 7, 23, 30, 33 and ground G of para 37 of the petition are denied as being incorrect. It is stated that a representation dated 10.12.2008 from the detenu along with the parawise comments of the detain ing authority was received by the Central Government in the con cerned Desk of Ministry of Home Affairs on 30.12.2008 through State Government of Uttar Pradesh vide letter No. 84/2/188/08-CX-5 dated 16.12.2008. This representation was processed for consideration and the case of the detenu was put up before the Deputy Secretary (Legal), Ministry of Home Affairs on 2.1.2009. The Deputy Secretary (Legal) carefully considered the same and put up the same before the Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs on 2.1.2009. The Joint Secretary con sidered the case and forwarded the same before Union Home Secretary on 6.1.2009. The Union Home Sec retary considered the case of the detenu and rejected the represen tation of the detenu on 16.1.2009 and the file received back in the section on 19.1.2009. 6. On the strength of averments made in above two paragraphs, learned Counsel for the petitioner contended that the Union of India has not made any en deavour whatsoever to explain the delay occasioned in considering the representa tion of the detenu from 6.1.2009 to 16.1.2009 and hence the detention order of the petitioner deserves to be quashed. Refuting the raised contention, Counsel for Union of India submitted that there were holidays and hence there is no delay on the part of Union in disposal of the representation of the petitioner.;