- (1.) THE petitioner, Thakuri Bai, obtained a rule in this case upon the State of Rajasthan to show cause why a writ of habeas corpus should not be issued under Article 226 of the Constitution for quashing the detention order, issued by the State Government against her son, Tillu alias Tillumal, son of Mianmal Sindhi, resident of Surajpole. Kota, vide No. F. 2/21 (24) Home-5/80. dated. December 26, 1980, under section 3 (2), National Security Act, 1980 (for short, the Act) and consequently directing the release from detention of the said Tillu.
(2.) THE facts necessary for the decision of this petition may be shortly stated here. On December 26, 1980. the State Government made an order under section 3 (2) of the Act directing that Tillu be detained, stating therein that it was satisfied that it was necessary to do so with a view to preventing him from acting in a manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order. Tillu was arrested on December 27, in pursuance of that order, and sent to Central Jail, Jaipur, where he is being detained these days. THE grounds of detention were communicated to Tillu, vide, letter, dated, December 30, 1980. from the Home Secretary to the Govt. of Raj. THE Home Secretary made it clear in this letter that if Tillu was desirous of making any representation against the detention order, he could do so and forward the same to him through the Superintendent, Central Jail, Jaipur. THE grounds of detention which are in Hindi may be reproduced here : *** THEse grounds and the supportive documents were placed by the State Government before the Advisory Board constituted under the Act. On January 29, 1981, the Board considered the entire material and recorded the opinion that there was sufficient cause for detention of Tillu. On receipt of this report, the State Government confirmed the detention order on February 18, 1981, and directed that the detenu shall be kept in detention for the maximum period of 12 months from the date of his detention. In other words, the detenu has been ordered to be detained till December 26, 1981. The petitioner challenged the detention order on a number of grounds pleaded in paragraphs 6, 7 and, 8 of the writ petition. These may be summarised here as follows : (i) Most of the criminal prosecutions against the detenu which are mentioned in the grounds of detention supplied to him are the out - come of enmity of one Shyam Sindhi and his servants and supporters against the detenu. (ii) The detenu has already been acquitted in cases enumerated at Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5 and 16 of the grounds of detention. He has not so far been convicted in any of the cases filed against him. He cannot be lawfully detained merely because a number of cases are still pending trial against him. (iii) None of the incidents detailed in the grounds of detention bears upon the maintenance of public order of the detenu acting prejudicially to the maintenance of public order. All the said incidents are stray incidents relating to alleged disturbance of law and order instead of public order. The State of Rajasthan filed a Written reply in answer to the writ petition. It pleaded that the impugned order of detention was passed by it after fully satisfying itself on the basis of the report of the Inspector General of Police that the detenu is a habitual offender whose criminal activities, as detailed in the report, pose a serious danger to the maintenance of public order. Details of all the incidents reported to the State Government by the Inspector General of Police on which the detention order was made were supplied to the detenu. The State reiterated that the detenu is a desperado who has created error in the locality and that the witness as in some of the cases pending against him. The State explained in this context that in the case mentioned at No. 1 in the grounds of detention, Noor Mohd. the complainant compromised the case under the pressure of the detenu, with the result that the trial court convicted him under section 323 I. P. C. , alone and acquitted him of the more serious charge under section 451 I. P. C. The State admitted that in three other cases referred to by the petitioner, the detenu had been acquitted by the courts concerned. The State placed on the record a large number of documents, Ex. R. I. to Ex. R. 36, stating that copies of these documents had been supplied to the detenu along with the grounds of detention and that the petitioner had deliberately suppressed this fact from the court in the writ petition filed by her for the release of the detenue. We may therefore proceed to decide this case on the footing that the grounds of detention, as reproduced in an earlier part of this judgment, along with all the supportive documents, were supplied to the detenu, through the Superintendent of Central Jail, Jaipur, vide letter, dated, December 30, 1980, and that inspite of a clear notice to the detenu that if he wanted to make any representation against the detention order he could do so and forward the same to the Home Secretary through the Superintendent, Central Jail, Jaipur, he did not make any representation against the impugned order. This does not, however mean that the petitioner is precluded from challenging the impugned order. Of course, it is open to the petitioner to challenge the impugned order on any ground on which it could possibly be quashed. We have already mentioned that the petitioner has challenged it in this writ petition on grounds which we have summarised into three different categories above. Mr. Tyagi, learned counsel for the petitioner raised an additional ground in his submissions at the bar to the effect that the grounds of detention are vague and irrelevant. Ordinarily, a plea which is not taken up in the writ petition should not be allowed to be taken up for the first time in arguments. Having regard, however, to the fact that this is a habeas corpus petition, we heard Mr. Tyagi on the additional ground as well. Taking up the additional ground first, we may straight - away point out that the grounds of detention do not suffer from any defect of vagueness or irrelevancy. All the incidents were detailed in the grounds of detention with reference to the F. I. R. registered in each case and the challan submitted in the court as a result of investigation by the police. It is significant to note that copies of all the F. I. Rs. and of the police charge-sheets submitted in various courts on the basis of these F. I. Rs. were also supplied to the detenu along with the grounds of detention. The argument that the grounds suffer from the defect of vagueness is therefore wholly devoid of force.
(3.) AS for the argument that the grounds are irrelevant, Mr. Tyagi's thesis is that since all the grounds bear upon law and order, rather than public order, they are irrelevant and therefore the detention order is bad. This argument is covered by item number (iii) of the summary of the grounds given by us in an earlier part of this judgment. It will therefore be dealt with presently when we take up those grounds. Ground No. (i) We have carefully examined the various F. I. Rs. registered against the detenu and the police charge-sheets submitted as a result of investigation by the police into those F. I. RS. and find that, out of a tolal of as many as 15 criminal prosecutions and 6 criminal proceedings launched against the detenu during a period spread over nearly 6 years, Shyam Sindhi figured as a complainant in 4 criminal prosecutions only. It would not, therefore, be correct to say that most of the criminal prosecutions were launched against the detenu at the instance of Shyam Sindhi. It will be seen that the alleged criminal activities of the detenu during the aforementioned period were directed against a cross-section of the residents of the town of Kota. The incidents which are proximate to the date of the making of the mention order include an incident of alleged robbery at the shop of Kanhyalal at point of knife at about . M. when he was in the process of closing the shop, and a similar foray into Mohan Talkis where he and his companions are alleged to have created terror by indiscriminately throwing pieces of furniture around in trying to extort a sum of Rs. 2,000/-from the manager of the sad cinema. The complaint in the latter case was kept wrongfully confined so that he could not inform the police for timely help. It is significant to note that the alleged criminal activities of the detenu were centred in the industrial and commercial town of Kota, extending to the localities covered by four different police stations of that town including the city centre of Kotwali. We are therefore not impressed by the argument that most of the criminal prosecutions relied on for making the detention order are the outcome of the alleged enmity between the detenu and one Shyam Sindhi. It is obvious that the detention order had to be made as a result of the cumulative effect of all these incidents, more particularly the incidents of the year 1980, Shyam Sindhi does not figure in the incidents of that year at all. Ground (ii) 9. The law is well settled that a person may be lawfully detained on the basis of an incident on which he was earlier prosecuted in a court of law and either discharged or acquitted by the court concerned. This proposition is of course not absolute, for the court may discover that the order of discharge or acquittal was recorded on the ground that the accusation brought against that person was false; & if so, no valid order of detention can be passed in connection with an incident, which was found to be definitely false. In Sahib Singh Duggal vs. Union of India (1), Sahib Singh, before the order of detention was made against him, had been prosecuted under section 3, Official Secrets Act, and discharged for want of evidence, because the prosecution had itself made an application for such discharge stating that no evidence was available to it to justify the framing of a charge against him. Immediately after Sahib Singh came out of the Jail, he was arrested and detained under the Defence of India Rules. The Supreme Court upheld the detention holding that it cannot be struck down as mala fide merely because the detenu had earlier been prosecuted and discharged. ;