TARAPADA DE AND OTHERS versus THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL

Stall of Bombay v. Atma Ram Sridhar Vaidya.

1951 Jan. 25.

allow this appeal and reverse the . decision of the Bombay High Court.

Appeal allowed.

Agent for the appellant : P. A. Mehta. Agent for the respondent: V. P. K. Nambiyar.

TARAPADA DE AND OTHERS

THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL [SHRI HARILAL KANIA C.J., SAIYID FAzL Au, PATANJALI SASTRI, MuKHERJEA, DAs and CHANDRASEKHARA A1YAR JJ.l

Constitution of lndia, 1950, Art. 22 (5)-Preventive detention-Duty to contmunicate grounds of detention as soon as n1ay be-Duty to gii1e earliest opportunity to make t-cpresentation-Grounds fttrnished after 15 days-"Supplementary grounds11 furnished after 4 months-Ugality of detentt'on-Vague grounds and irrele-vant grounds distinguished-Supply of grounds first and details later-Legality-Serving printed orders on same date on several persons-Bona fides of detention.

large number of persons were detained under the Bengal Criminal Law An1endrnent Act, 1930~ The validity of this ~.\ct was being c.hallenged in the High Court. Meanwhile, the Prcven· tive Detention Act of 1950 was passed on 26th February, 1950, and on the same date ·detention orders under this J\-:t \Vere served on them. The grounds of detention were served on them on the 14th of l\farch, and on the 16th of July the Government served on them "'Supplementary grounds" in continuation of the grounds already furnished on the 14th of March. sec~nd set of grounds were communicated to the appellants on the 22nd or 23rd of July. They applied to the High Court of Calcutta for writs of habeas corpus contending that the orders of detention were invalid on various ground~. The High Court rejected these applications and they appealed to the Supreme Court.

Held per KANIA C.J., FAzI. ALI, MuKHERJEA and CHANDRA· SEKHARA AIYAR ·JJ.-(i) that-in the particular circumstances of the case, cSpccial!y in view of the fact that large nnn1ber _of cases had to be dealt with on the passing of the Preventive Detention Act in February, 1950, it cannot be said that the grounds \Vt.re not communicated to the appellants "as soon as may be" within the meaning of Art. 22 (5);

(ii) it cannot be held that the appellants were not given the "earliest opportunity" to make representation, as required by Art. 22(5), merely because further details and facts were com-municated to the appellants on the 16th July and 22nd July as these later communications did not contain any new or addition,! grounds (though they were described as "supplementary grounds") but only furnished details of the heads of grounds furnished on the 14th March;

(iii) merely because ground is vague it cannot be con-sidered that it is no ground at all and therefore cannot be sufficient to 'satisfy' the authorities; 'vague' ground does not stand on the same footing as an irrelevant ground, which can have no connectioil at all with the satisfaction of the Government;

(iv) the sufficiency of the grounds for the purposes of satisfaction . of the Government is not matter for examination by the court; their suflidency to give the detained person the earliest opportunity to make representation can be examined by the court, but only from that point of view.

Held also, per DAs J.-The fact that large number of fresh orders of detention were made overnight did not necessarily indicate bad fait.\ on the part of the authorities in the circum-stances of these cases as the authorities had already applied their minds to the susp~cted activities .of each of the detenues and were satisfied that with view to prevent them from doing some prejudicial :;ct, it was· necessary to detain them.

The State of Bombay v. Atma Ram Sridhar Vaidya supra p. 167 followed.

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: (Case No. 24 of 1950). Appeal under Art. 132(1) of the Constitu-tion of India, against the judgment and order of the High Court of Judicature at Calcutta in Criminal Miscellaneous Case No. 361 of 1950.

A. C. Gupta and Sudhansu Sekhar Mukherjee (Arun Kumar Dutta and S. N. Mukherjee, with them) for the appellants.

M. C. Setalvad, Attorney-General, (B. Sen, with him) for the respondent.

1951. Jan. 25. The Judgment of Kania C. J., Fazl Ali, Mukherjea and Chandrasekhara Aiyar J.J., was delivered by Kania C. J. Patanjali Sastri and Das JJ. delivered separate judgments.

KANIA C. J.-This is an appeal under article 132 of the Constitution of India from the judgment of the

Tarapatfti DI. artd Otlwr1 v The State qf West Bengill.

Kania C. ].

Tarapat!a De O'lld Others v. Thi State ef Wist Bengal. KaniaC.].

High Court at Calcutta, which rejected the hebea: corpus petitions of the appellants. The detention orders under the Preventive Detention Act, 1950, in all cases were served on the appellants on the 26th February, 1950, and the grounds for the detention were served on the 14th March, 1950. By way of specimen we quote one of them : "You are being detained in pursuance of deten-tion order made under sub-clause (ii) of clause (a) of sub-section ( 1) of section 3 of the Preventive Deten-tion Act, 1950, (Act IV of 1950), on the following grounds:-( 1) That you have been assisting . the operations of the Communist Party of India, which along with its volunteer organisations has been declared unlawful by Government under section 16 of the Indian Criminal Law Amendment Act (Act XIV of 1908), and which has for its object commission of rioting with deadly weapons, robbery, dacoity, arson and murder and .possession and use of arms and ammunitions and ex-plosives and thus acting in manner prejudidal to the maintenance of public order and tbat it is necessary to prevent you from acting in such manner.

(2) That as member of the C.P.I. on its Kishan front, you have fomented trouble amongst the peasants of Howrah District and incited them to acts of law-lessness and violence :

and have thereby acted in manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order : That as worker of the C.P.I. you have tried to foment trouble amongst the tramways men and other workers at Calcutta and in speeches which you deli-vered at the University Hall and other places you actually incited them to resort to acts of violence and lawlessness ; and have thereby acted in manner pre-judicial to the maintenance of public order."

On the 16th of July, 1950, the Government of West Bengal served on the appellants "in continuation of the grounds already furnished on the 14th of March, 1950, supplementary grounds" for their detention specimen of which is in the following terms :-

"In continuation of the grounds already furnished

under order No. 6163 H. S. dated 14th March, 1950, you are being informed of the supplementary grounds for your detention which are as follows :-you as the Secretary of the Bengal Chatkar Maz-door Union, as member of the Executive Committee of the Federation of Mercantile Empolyees' Union, as the honorary reporter of the 'Khabar' newspaper (C. P. I. organ) carried on the disruptive programme of the C. P. I. On the 29th July, 1948, · you along with others led procession at Howrah. preaching dis-content against Government and have been thus acting in manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order."

As in the case of the first grounds, these "supple-

mentary grounds" were also served on each appellant separately. The appellants applied for Rule of habeas corpus separately wider section 491 of the" Criminal Procedure Code and on the 21st July, 1950, the High Court issued Rule in each case on the Chief Secre-tary to the Government of West Bengal. second set of grounds were communicated to the appellants on the 22nd or 23rd of July, 1950. specimer of one is in the following terms :-

"In continuation of the grounds alreadv furnished

under order No. 12820 dated 14th July, 1950, you are being informed of the supplementary grounds for your detention which are as follows :-

1. That in meeting held at the University Institute

on the 19th March, 1947, under the auspices of the Calcutta Tramway Workers' Union, you held out the threat that any attempt to take out tram cars on the 20th March, 1947, would be inviting disaster and you further said that if the authorities tried to resume the tram service you and your friends would not hesitate to remove the tram lines and cut the wires.

2. Tha:t on the 13th une, 1948, you presided over

meeting under the auspices of the Students' Fede-ration (C. P. I. controlled) aad delivered speech

Tarapadtl De anti Otlters v. The Stale ef w ISi B•ftgal.

Kania C.J.

TarapodaDe and Others v. The SlaJ1 qf W 1st Bengal. Koni.tJC.J.

advocating withdrawal of ban on Party of India and its. organ Swadhinta."

on the Communist

The High Court after considering the whole matter rejected the petitions of the appellants and the appel-lants have thereupon come in appeal before us.

In the High Court, it was first contended on behalf of the . appellants that the communication of the grounds dated the 14th March was not compliance with article 22(5) of the Constitution of India, as those grounds were not communicated "as soon as may be." The High Court rejected this contention. Under the circumstances of the case, we agree with the High Court and are unable to hold that in furnishing the grounds dated the 14th March, 1950, the authorities had failed to act in accordar\ce with the procedure laid down in article 22 (5) of the Constitution. Under the Bengal Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1930, very large number of persons were detained. The validity of that Act was being challenged in the High Court and the judgment was expected to be delivered towards the end of February, 1950. The Preventive Detention Act, 1950, was passed by the Parliament of India in the last week of February, 1950, and these orders on all those· detenus were served ou the 26th of February, 1950. Having regard to the fact that Provincial Government had thus sudden I y to deal with large number of cases on one day, we are unable to accept this contention of the appellants.

On behalf of the appellants it was next urged that there has been non-compliance with the procedure laid down in article 22 (5) of the Constitution and section 7 of the Preventive Detention Act in the man-ner. of supplying grounds to the appellants resulting in not providing to the appellants the earliest opportunity to make representation, which they had right to make. In the judgment delivered today in Case No. 22 of 1950(') we have discussed in detail the nature of the two rights conferred under article 22(5). We have to apply those principles to the facts of this appeal for its decision.

(I) Supra, p 167,

When the authorities sent their second communica-tion dated 16th July, 1950, to the appel~ants they described it as "in continuation of the grounds already furnished" and as the "supplementary grounds for your detention". Relying on the wording of this communication it was argued that these were additional grounds which were furnished · to the de-tenu and therefore the procedure prescribed under article 22(5) had not been followed. It was argued that the obligation to communicate grounds "as soon as may be" was absolute. The grounds for detention must be before the Provincial Government before they could be satisfied about the necessity for malCing the deten-tion order. If the grounds before the detaining autho-rities on the 26th of February, 1950, were only those which they communicated on the 14th of March, they cannot support the detention on additional grounds which were not before them on that day and which the;• ~et out in the second communication four months later. It was also contended that the fact of this com-munication showed that the authorities were not satis-fied on the original grounds and had therefore put forth these supplementary grounds as an afterthought. In our opinion these arguments cannot be accepted. description of the contents of the second communi-cation as "supplementary grounds" does not neces.-sarily make them additional or new grounds. One has to Jook at the contents to find out whether they are new grounds as explained in our judgment in Case No. 22 of 1950(1). Examining the contents of the later communicat.ion in that way we find that they only furnished details of the second heads of the groW1ds furnished to the appropriate appellant on 14th March, 1950, in respect of his activities. We are unable to treat them as new grounds and we agree with the High Court in its conclusion that these are not fresh or new grounds. We dp not think it proper to con-sider the true effect of the communication only by reading its opening words. The whole of it must be read and considered together. The contention that the authorities were not satisfied on the original 0) Supr'a. p. 167

TaraplJl/a D• and Others v. TlzeState qf West Beng«l. JrniaC.j.

T arafHJt/a De and Others v. The State ef West Bengal. KaniaC.J.

grounds and therefore put forth this communication as the supplemental grounds is again unsound. The fact that these details were communicated later does not necessarily show that they were not within the knowledge of the authorities when they sent the com-munication dated the 14th of March. The contention that this communication of the 16th July, 1950, was not "as soon as may be", has to be rejected having regard to the principles set out in our judgment in Case No. 22 of 1950. The facts in each case have to be taken into consideration and if the detained person contends that this part of the procedure pres-cribed in article 22(5) was not complied with, the authorities will have to place materials before the court t~ refute that contention. In the present case the High Court has considered that there has been no infringement of this procedural law and we see no reason to come to different conclusion. It was next argued that the grounds being vague, they could not be considered as grounds at all and therefore they could not be sufficient "to satisfy" the authorities. On this point we have nothing to add to what we have stated in our juagment in Case No. 22 of 1950. We are unable to accept the contention that "vague grounds" stand on the same footing as "irrele-varit grounds". An irrelevant ground has no connec-tion at all with the satisfaction of the Provincial Government which makes the erder of detention. For the reasons stated in that judgment we are also unable to accept the contention that if the grounds are vague and no representation is possible there can be no satisfaction of the authority as required under section 3 of the Preventive Detention Act. This argument mixes up two objects. The sufficiency of the grounds, which gives rise to the satisfaction of the Provincial Government, is not matter for examination by the court. The sufficiency of the grounds to give the de-tained person the' earliest opportunity to make repre-sentation can be examined by the court, but only from that point of view. We are therefore unable to accept the contention that the quality and characteristic of

the grounds should be the same for both tests. On the question of satisfaction, as has been often stated, one person may be, but another may not be, satisfied on the same grounds. That aspect however is not for the determination of the court, having regard to the words used in the Act. . The second part of the enquiry is clearly open to the court under article 22(5). We are therefore unable to accept the argument that if the grounds are not sufficient or adequate for making the representation the grounds canriot be sufficient for the subjective satisfaction of the authority.

As regards the grounds furnished · by the Govern-ment in each case in its hrst communication, it is sufficient to notice that while the first ground is com-mon to all the appellants, the second ground is differ-ent in most cases. The High Court has considered the case of each appellant in respect of the communi-cation dated the 14th of March, 1950, sent to him. In their opinion those grounds are not vague. They have held that the procedural requirement to give the de-tained person the earliest opportunity to make rep-resentation has not beeen infringed by the communi-cation of the grounds of the 14th of March and by the subsequent communication made to the appellants in July. This point was not seriously pressed before us. After hearing counsel for the appellant we sec no reason to· differ from the conclusion of the High Court on this point. The result is that the appeal fails and is dismissed.PATANJAU SASm J.-This appeal was heard along with Ca5¢ No. 22 of 1950 (The State of Bombay v. Atma Ram Sridhar Vaidya) (1). as the main question involved was the same. In the view I have expressed on that question in my judgment delivered today in that case, this appeal cannot succeed and I agree that it should be dismissed.

DAS J.-The same important questions have been raised in this appeal by 100 detenus against an order of Bench of the Calcutta High· Court as were raised

(I) Supra, p. 167.

TarapaJaDe and Other1 v. The State qf Wen Ben.ta/, Kania C.J.

Patanj11li Sastrial J.

T 41'opado DI and Othm v. TA•Slot• ef West Bt111ol.

by the detenu in the appeal of the State of Bombay in which judgment has just been delivered. One addi-tional point raised in this appeal was that the fact that large n!Jlllber of fresh orders of detention were made "overnight" indicates bad faith on the part of the authorities, for the authorities could not have applied their minds to each individual case. 1 am unable to accept this contention as correct. The autho-rities had already applied their minds to the suspec-ted activities of each of . the dctcnus and were satisfied that with view to prevent them from doing some prejudicial act of p;rticular kind it was necessary to m;ike an order of detention against them under the local Acts. There being doubt as to the validity of the local Acts and the Preventiv·: Detention Act having been passed in the meantime the question was to make fresh order under the new Act. The minds of the authorities having already been made up as to the expediency of making an order of detention against them, an elaborate application of mind, such as is now suggested, does not appear to me to be necessary at all. I do not think there was any failure of duty on the part of the authorities which will establish bad faith on their part. In my view, for reasons stated in my judgment in the other appeal, there being no proof of any mala {ides on the part of the authorities, no funda-mental rights of the petitioners have been infringed. In the case of each of the detenus, apart from the com-mon ground, there were one or more specilic grounds of detention which arc quite sufficient to enable the detenu Concerned to make his representation. There-fore, the question of supplementary particulars does not arise at all. In my opinion the conclusions arrived at by Roxburgh J. were correct and well-founded, and, therefore, this appeal should be dismissed.

ppettl dismisseil.

Agent for the appellant : P. K. Chatterjee. Agent for the respondent : P. K. Bose.