R.K.Rastogi, J. - (1.) THIS Habeas Cor pus petition has been filed by the petitioner for quashing the order dated 1-5-2008 passed by the District Magistrate, Basti against him under Section 3(2) of the National Security Act and for his release from detention.
(2.) IT has been alleged in the petition that the petitioner is a peace loving and law abid ing citizen and he has not been convicted in any case so far. On 16-2-08 at about 9.30 a.m. a F.I.R. was lodged by Sri Yashwant Chaudhary against him and other co-accused persons under sections 147, 148, 149, 302 I.P.C. at police station Lalganj District Basti and on the basis of that report case crime No. 63/08 was registered against him. On the ba sis of this report the District magistrate, Basti, the respondent No. 2, passed an order against him for his detention under Section 3(2) of the National Security Act on 1-5-08. The pe titioner has challenged the validity of this or der on several grounds in the present Habeas Corpus petition. Separate counter affidavits have been filed on behalf of the respondents Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 and the petitioner has filed rejoinder affidavits also in reply to those counter affi davits. We have heard the learned counsel for both the parties and have gone through the record. Learned counsel for the petitioner first of all submitted before us that the District Magistrate, Basti, respondent No. 2 did not apply his mind before passing the impugned order and he simply signed the detention or der in a mechanical manner. He further sub mitted that a perusal of the grounds of deten tion contained in the order dated 1-5-08 (An-nexure-2) shows that these are verbatim re production of the report of the Inspector of Police Station Lalganj dated 30-4-2008 (An-nexure-4).
(3.) IN support of this contention he cited before us a Division Bench Ruling of this Court in Tunnu v. Superintendent, District Jail, Ballia and others: 2000 (27) A.Cr.R. 611: 2000 All LJ 1428. IN this case also in the grounds of detention, there was almost ver batim reproduction of the report submitted by sponsoring authority with this charge only that the name of the petitioner in the report was substituted by word ' Aap' in the grounds of the detention order. The Court, relying upon a ruling of the Hon'ble Apex Court in Jai Singh v. State of Jand K : (1985) 1 SCC 561: (AIR 1985 SC 764) held that apparently the detention order had been passed in me chanical manner, casually and without appli cation of mind and so it stood vitiated. He also cited before us another ruling of Hon'ble Supreme Court in Rajesh Vashdev Adnani v. State of Maharashtra and others : (2006) 1 SCC (Cri) 61. This was a case in which the detention order was passed under Section 3(1)(i) and (iii), COFFPOSA and the detention order was verbatim reproduction of the pro posal of the sponsoring authority except use of the word 'Aap' in the order for the word 'he' in the proposal. It was held that such a detention order suffers from non application of mind on the part of the detaining authority at the time of actual preparation of the deten tion order and grounds thereof and so it was sustainable. We have gone through the proposal for detention of the petitioner submitted by the Inspector of P.S. Lalganj (Annexure-4) and the grounds for detention furnished to the pe titioner on 1-5-08 along with the detention order which is annexure-2. A comparative reading of both these documents reveals that the contents of paras 1 and 2 of Annexure-4 have been almost virtually reproduced in paras 1 and 2 of Annexiire-2 with this change only that the word 'Aap' has been used in the grounds (Annexure 2) in place of reference to the petitioner either by name or by pro noun in the report. It was submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the aforesaid facts go to show that there was no application of mind on the part of the District Magistrate at the time of passing the order of detention so he simply signed the order casu ally in a mechanical manner and, therefore, the order stands vitiated. We agree with this contention in view of the discussion attempted above.;