KRISHNA MURARI AGGARWALA versus THE UNION OF INDIA & ORS.

KRISHNA MURARI AGGARWALA

THE UNION OF INDIA & ORS. July 15, 1975

[N. L. UNTWALIA AND S. M. FAZAL ALI, JJ.]

Mailuenance of Internal Security Act, 1971, Section 3(1),(a)(iiiJ-Two grounds of detention-One irrelevant-Effect of-Detaining Authority, more than one-Prdpriety.

Section 3(1),(a)(iiiJ-Two

The petftioner was carrying on business in diesel oil, an essential commo-dity, in two places. He was detained under s. 3(1){a)(iii) of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971, on the basis of allegations in lWo grounds that as had committed sets prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and services 'l!ssentlal to the communit¥. The allegation in' the first ground was that he had stocked large quantity of light dioesel oil in one of the places without waiting for the licence to be cleared by the Chief Controller of Explosives in violation of the provisions of the Petroleum Act. It was also stated in the ground that complaint had be-en lodged in the ~lagistrate's court for the offence. The allegation in the second ground was that the petitioner violated the U.P. Sale of Motor Taxation Act and the rules made thereunder, in that the names and addresses of customers who had purchased light diesel from the petitioner, had not been given in the cash memos.

Allowing the petition,

HELD: (l)(a) There is no allegation by the detaining authority in the first ground that by storing the huge quantity of light diesel oil the petitioner had in any way affected the distribution or sale of that commodity; nor is there any allegation to show that th-e petitioner had refused to sell the oil to anybody who required it. Also there is no suggestion, far less any allegation, that the petitioner had tried to divert his stocks from one place to the other and thereby deprived the people of one place of their share of the oil. There-fore, there i's ab,!iolutely no correlation between the act of the petitioner and the disruption of distribution of essential supplies to the community. {20D-E, F-G]

(b) Fron1 the violation of the mandatory provisions of the Petroleum Act and the Rules made thereunder, no presumption can be drawn that there was disruption of supply of the e~scntial commodity. [20G-H1

(c) The commission of an offence at private place or violation of pro-vision of law by itself docs not attract the Maintenance of Internal Security Act unless, by the act committed, the supply oi' an essential commodity to the com-munity is disrupted or the even flow of the life of the community is disruoted.

Manu Bhusha11 Roy Prodha11 v. State of Bent;oi' and Otl1ers, ,A.. l. R. 1973 S. C. 29'5, referred to.

(2) The second ground does di.sdose clear .overt act from which an in-ference can be drawn that the petitioner had made number of fictitious sales. But, in view of the finding that the first ground is irrelevant, it is not possible to determine to what extent the subjectivie satisfaction of the detaining authority was influenced or affected by the first ground. When out of 2 grounds one is vague or irrelevan't, then the entire order of detention falls to the ground. [22C, F-Gl

(3) The Court cannot go behind the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority but such satisfaction does not confer blanket power which may authorise the detaining ttuthority to act in ruthless or arbitrary fashion._ J udL cial decisions have carved out an area. though limited, within which, the sub-jective satisfaction of the detaining authority, which is si~e qu_a non for the exercise of the power, can be tested on the touchstone of ob1ect1vity. [24F-GJ

(a) Tile words '"mile an order directing that such person be detained" in ieetion 3 ( 1) of the Act postulates three conditions : (i) that the order must be made by the authority in the section; (ii) The order must be duly signed by the 11aid authority; and (iii) that only one authority and one authority alone caa pass the order of detention. Therei'ore, unless the order made and the ground.:f prepared are signed by the authority concerned, the order is not made as con ... templated by the section.-{25F-G] . .

(b) Further. since the order is based on grounds to be served on the detenu, the order of detention could be passed only if the grounds are in existence and are prepared contemporaneously, otherwise the order of detention becomes illusory. [25H-26A]

In the present case, the District ~fagistrate who filed the counter·affidaYit Wal acting in place of the permanent District Magistrate. In the Hig!i Court, which was moved in the first instance for writ of luibeas corpNS, the District l\fagistrate stated that the order of detention was passed by him after being satisfied of the grounds of detention, that he also framed the draft of the grou.ndi and that the permanent District 1fagistrate, who took over from him merely signed and served thOSe grounds on the detenu. Bl.it, in this Court he stated that the order of detention was passed by the two detaining authorities, namely, both the District Afagistrate!I. after they had fully satisfied the~eives about tho exi3tence of the grounds. It is,, therefore, not possible to determine as to v.:ho in fact made the order of detentionl. __ and in view of the contradictory stand taken in the counter-affidavits. filed oy the detaining au~horitics, the exercise of the jurisdiction to detain the petitioner has not been made with due care and caution or in proper and fair manner. [23B-24FJ

J(hudiram Da.t v. The Stafe of rVest Bengal· and Other,, A. l. R. 1975. S. C. 550, referred to.

[The Court also expressed strong disapproval of the careless and irre5ponsible manner in lvbich the counter-affidavit had been filed by the Distrir:t. Magistrate, because the date on which reference was made to the Advisory Board was in-correctly stated in tho counter-affidavit which created unnecessary coofuiion : and -~_ontroversy over simple is5~.] [18P-G]_

0RTGI!<AL, JURISDICTION : Writ Petition No. 84 of 1975.

Petition under Art. 32 of the Constitution of India.

A. K. Sen, D. N.· Mukherjee, Narayan Gupta and G. S, Chatterjee; fur the petitioner.

Girish Chandra, for respondent no. I.

D. P. Ur.iyal and O. P. Rana, f~r respondent nos. 2-5.

The. Judgment of the Court wa5 delivered by

FAZAL ALI, J.-By an order dated November 8, 1974 passed by. the District Magistrate, Badaun, the petitioner was detained under s. 3(l)(a)(iii) of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971-hereinafter referred to as 'the. Act'-because the allegations made in . the . grounds of detention disclosed that he had committed acts pre-H . judicial to the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community. The grounds of. the order of detention were served on the petitioner by the District Magistrate,· Badaun, on November· 13, 1974 .. The. State Government approved the order of detention on 3-'L714SupCI/75 . .November 19, 1974 and made report to the Government of India on November 22, 1974. According to the respondents, the Govern-ment of U.P. had made reference to the Advisory Board constituted under the Act on November 22, 1974 but as it had not received the representation from the petitioner, the same was forwarded later. The representation, according to the respondents, was received on November 28, 1974 which was rejected on December 6, 1974. The representa· tion was sent to the Advisory Board on December 1~, 1974 which gave its report holding that the grounds were sufficient for detention of the petitioner and after receipt of the opinr0n of the Advisory Board on January 7, 1975 the order of detention was finally confirmed by the Government on January 17, 1975.

We might mention at the very outset that there was some contro-versy on two points before us. In the first place the petitioner did not accept the stand oe the Government that the reference to the Advisory Board was made on November 22, 1974 but relied on counter-affidavit filed by Mr. S. K. D. Mathur, the then District Magi-strate of Badaun, in this Court to support his plea that the reference to the Advisory Board was made on December 20, 1974 vide para-graph 2(vi) of the counter-affidavit appearing at p. 118 0£ the Paper Book. It was therefore contended by the learned counsel for the petitioner that as the reference was made to the Advisory Board beyond the period mentioned in s. 10 of the Act, there being vr0lation of the mandatory provision of the statute, the order of detention fell on this ground alone. We gave an opportunity to the G0vernment to produce be.fore us materials to show the exact position and from the original file produced before us we find that the counter-affidavit filed by Mr. S. K. D. Mathur in this Court to th" effect that the reference was made to the Advisory Board on December 20, 1974 was factually incorrect and that the reference was really made on November 22. 1974 by the Government by virtue of letter No. 107/2/48(74. TI1e file also contains letter of the Registrar dated January 7, 197 S forwarding the opinion of the Advisory Board wherein also it was mentioned that the reference was made on November 22, 1974. In view of these cogent materials Mr. Sen learned counsel for the petitioner did not choose to press this point. We cannot, however. leave this matter without expressing our strong disapprobation on the careless and irresponsible manner in which the counter-affidavit has been filed by the respondents, particularly by Mr. S. K. D. Mathur who happened to be the then District Magistrate, Badaun. We lw•pc the Government will be careful in futt1re and see that such incorrect affidavits arc not filed before this Court, which may create unneccssarv confusion and controversy and make simple issue so very much involved.

The petitioner was admittedly partner of the firm called Bharat Oil Company which was dealing in the storage and sale of high speed diesel oil since 1965. According to the petitioner the business was started at Badaun and Ujhani but later branch was opened at Bareilly and the firm transferred its headquarters to Bareilly in 1971. We are not, however, concerned with the business at

Barcilly in this case. Under the Petroleum Act, 1934, the petitioner could have carried on his business only after obtaining licence from the prescribed authority. The District Authorities could grant licence only to the extent of 22,000 litres but if the dealer wanted to store high diesel oil to the extent of more than 22,000 litres he had to get licence from the Chief Controller of Explosives, Nagpur.. The petitioner's further case is that as high speed diesel oil ran in short supply, the Indian Oil Corporation and the District authorities impressed on the dealers the necessity of keeping light diesel oil which was available in sufficient quantities and was necesrnry for running crushers and pumps in the rural areas. The petitioner had undoubtedly secured licence for storage of light diesel oil which was valid upto March 31, 1975 and had applied for renewal of the licence thereafter and had also complied with all the necessary formalities about n-o objection and the safety certificate to be given by the District Authorities. But on the date in question the licence of the petitioner had not been renewed so far. We might mention in this connection that the stand taken by the respondents is that although the petitioner had licence to store light diesel oil to the exent of 22,000 litres he did not possess any licence for storing it at Ujhani. It appears that the godown of the petitioner was searched by the excise authorities on October 17, 1974 and November 5, 1974 and on inspection of the godown about 1.64 lakhs litres of light diesel oil was found stored at Ujhani. The stock register was produced by the petitioner before the authorities which appeared to be in order and there is no allegation that there was any manipulation or interpolation in the stock register. Thus the simple allegation against the petitioner is that he had stocked huge quantity of light diesel oil without waiting for the licence to be cleared by the Chief Controller of Explosives at Nagpur. This forms the subject-matter of the allegations mentioned in grounds (l)(a) & (b) of the grounds of detention served on the petitioner. The sheet-anchor of the argument of Mr. Sen learned counsel for the petitioner was that in so fur as gmund No. (1) was concerned it was wholly irrelevant and totally unconnected with the nexus of the Act, because even if the grounds be taken at their face value they did not disrupt or disturb the essential supplies to the community. Before dealing with this contention it may be necessary to quote in extenso the grounds mentioned in (l)(a) & (b) of the detention order:

"(l) That you partner in the firm named Bharat' Oil Company, Mohalla Ayodhya Nagar, Ujhani District Badaun, on Bareilly-Mathura Road, authorised only to deal in High Speed Diesel and Motor Spirit were found hoarding Light Diesel Oil, without having obtained licence for the same from the Chief Controller of Explosives, Nagpur as is evident from the following :-

(a) On 17-10-74 at about 4 P.M. the premises of your aforesaid firm was inspected by Sri S. N. Pandey, District Excise Officer, Badaun and it was found that in the underground tanks within the premises mentioned aforesaid 96,000 litres of Light

Diesel Oil was stored, for which no licence could be produced on demand by the District Excise Officer aforesaid and thereafter complaint has also been lodged in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Badaun by the District Excise Officer on 8-11-74.

(b) On 5-11-74 the premises of your aforesaid firm. Bharat Oil Company, Ujhani, was again inspected at about 4.15 P.M. by Sri N. N. Verma S.D.M. Badaun accompanied by District Excise Officer Bad.aun and Sri Fateh Singh, Dy, S.P. Badaun and it was found that 68,000 litres of Light Diesel Oil had during 17th October 1974 to the time of this inspection been added to the store kept by you of the said Light Diesel Oil of 96,000 litres, in three underground tanks within the premises mentioned aforesaid and no licence could be pro-duced on demand by the S.D.M. Badaun. For this also, complaint has been lodged by the S.D.M. Badaun in the Court of Judicial Magistrate II. Badaun on 8-11-74."

Analysing these grounds it would appear that there is no allegation by the detaining authority that by storing the huge quantity ofl light diesel oil the petitioner had in any way affected the distribution or sale of that commodity, nor is there any allegation to show that the (ktitimier had refused to sell light diesel oil to any body who required it. The High Conrt which was moved in the first instance for writ of habeas corpus, appears to have drawn an inference based purely on speculation that the petitioner had transferred huge quantities of , light diesel oil from his depot at Badaun to his godown at Ujhani. There is, however, no material ·on the basis of which the High Court could have drawn such an inference. There is, however, no suggestion, far less any allegation, in these grounds that the petitioner had tried to divert his stocks of light diesel oil from Badaun to Ujhani and thereby deprived the people of Badaun of their share of the light diesel oil. In these circumstances, therefore, we are satisfied that there is absolutely no correlation between the act of the petitioner and tho disruption of distribution of the essential se!pplies to the community. The learned counsel appearing for the respondents submitted that by storing such huge quantities of light diesel oil in Ujhani the petitioner has committed clear violation of the mandatory provisions of the Petroleum Act and the Rules made thereunder and must be presumed to have disrupted the essential supplies because light diesel oil had been declared by the order of the Government of U.P. to be an essential commodity. We are, however, unable to agree with this argument. Mr. Sen appearing for the petitioner does not dispute that the light diesel oil was an essential commodity, but his argument was that he has in no way tried to disrupt the essential supplies of this com-modity and he merely committed technical offence in storing the quantities of light diesel oil in anticipation of the licence which had been cleared by the District Authorities and which awaited the

sanction of the Chief Controller of Explosives, Nagpur and which would have in normal routine been granted. It is also admitted in the ground itself that complaint had been lodged in the Court of the Chie.f Judicial Magistrate against the petifroner for the storage. We have already held in several cases that the commission of an offence at private place or violation ofl provision of law by itself does not attract the Act unless by the act committed by the petitioner the essential supplies to the community are disrupted or even flow of the life of the community is disrupted. Reading grounds (l)(a) & (b) we are unable to hold that they are in any way germane or relevant to the disruption of maintenance of essential supplies to the community.

In Manu Bhusan Roy Prodhan v. State of West Bengal and Others(') this Court observed as follows :

"This kind of solitary assault on one individual, which may well be equated with an ordinary murder which is not an uncommon occurrence, can hardly be said to disturb public peace or place public order in jeopardy, so as to bring the case within the purview ot the Act. It can only raise law and order problem and no more; its impact on the society as whole cannot be considered to be so exten-sive, widespread and forceful as to disturb the normal life of the community thereby rudely shaking the balanced tempo of the orderly life of the general public. This ground is, therefore, not at all relevant for sustaining the order of detention for preventing the petitioner from acting in man-ner prejudicial to the maintcna'.1ce of public order."

The ratio of this case fully tallies with the facts. of the present case where also grounds (I) (a) & (b) taken at their face value appear to be irrelevant and do not disclose any causal connection with the disruption of the essential supplies to the community.

We now take up the other ground, namely, ground No. (2), which is as follows :

"(2) That you as partner of the firm M/s Bharat Oil Company located at Badaun licensed •at Badaun to . deal with Light Diesel Oil and required by rule 9(1) of the U.P. Essential Commodities (Price Dirnlay and Control of Supply and Distribution) Order, 1971. as amended by Second Amendment dated' June 13, 1973 framed under Rule 114(2) of the Defence of India Rules, 1971 to issue every purchaser correct receiot showing, inter alia, the name and address of the customer were found to have sold Light Diesel Oil reoeatedly without comolving with the said requirement and with the object make fictitious sale of the

I) A. I. R. 1973 S. C. 295.

Light Diesel Oil scheduled commodity within the mean-ing of the said order, as is evident from the following :

I of not given." l

(i) C;sh memo no. 62 dated 8-8-74

(ii) C.ish memo no. 63 dated 14-8-74

Name and address of the customer not given."

(iii) Cash memo no. 134 dated 7-10-74

(iv) C,sh memo no.135 dated 7-10-74

(v) Cnh m:mo no. 145 dated 7-11-74

(vi) C.1511 rn:mo no. 146 dated 7-11-74

This ground no do_ubt dis~loses clear overt act on the part ?~ the petitioner from which an mference can be drawn that the petitioner had made number of fictitious sales. 111e details of the cash memos by which the sales had been made have also been given but the cash memos do not disclose the names and addresses of the customers, as required by the rules. The petitioner has himself admitted in paragraph-13 of his petition filed in this Court that there had been violation of the U.P. Sale of Motor Spirit Taxation Act and the Rules made thereunder but he sought to explain the omission on the ground that it was due to· the mistake of the Munim and the quantities al-leged to have been sold were actually purchased by the petitioner him-self for the use of the pumps in his OW!Ji agricultural farm. This explanation does not appear to be convincing at all. From the file produced before us by the respondents it appears that the total amount of sale of light diesel oil under these cash memos mentioned in the ground comes to 21,500 litres. We find it impassible to believe that the petitioner would consume such huge quantity of light diesel oil for his personal agricultural farms particularly when the petitioner had given no details of the number of farms •and other machines for which this oil was said to be used. In these circumstances there can be no doubt that these were fictitious sales made by the petitioner with view to hoard light diesel oil and by his conduct the persons who were in genuine need of light diesel oil were deprived of the same. Ground No. (2), therefore, is quite specific, but the difficulty is that in view of our finding that ground No. (1) is irrelevant it is not possible to determine as to what extent the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority was influenced or affected by Ground No. (1) which has been found by us to be extraneous and irrelevant. It has been held by us in several cases that where out of two grounds one gronnd is vague or irrelevant, then the entire· order of detention falls to the ground. In this view of the matter the order of detention suffers from this serious infirmity and must be quashed.

Secondly it was argued by the learned counsel for the petitioner that on the materials produced before us the suhjective satisfaction of the detaining authority has also uot been established. To begin with it is not clear at all as to who passed the order of detention and who wa~ satisfied regarding the sufficiency of the grounds. Jn the second place the grounds appear to have been served by Mr. R. C. Arora the permanent District Magistrate of Badaun who has also signed the same which shows that he was the detaining

authority also. On consideration of these two points we are of the opinion that the contention of the learned counsel for the peti-tioner is well founded and must prevail. Coming to th~ first point we find that Mr. S. K. D. Mathur has clearly alleged in his couuter-af!idavit that Mr. R. C. Arora the permanent District Magistrate of Badaun had proceeded on leave from October 21, 1974 to November 11, 1974 and during his absence the· deponent S. K. D. Mathur was acting as the District Magistrate of Badaun. It is further stated in the affidavit that Mr. R. C. Ar01a rejoined his duty on November 12, 197 4 and took charge of his office. The order of detention, how-ever, appears to have been passed while Mr. S. K. D. Mathur was officiating as District Magistrate of Badaun and Mr. Mathur makes no secret of the fact that the order of detention was passed by him after being satisfied of the grounds of detention. In the COU!lter-affidavit submitted by Mr. S. K. D. Mathur before the High Court, which is Annexure at p. 66 of the Paper Book Mr. Mathur cate-gorically stated that he himself had passed the detention order after recordirig his satisfaction. In this connection paragraph l of the counter-affidavit before the High Court is as fo!lows :

"That the deponent was District Magistrate, Badaun on 8-11-1974, and he has passed the detention order against the petitioner after being fully satisfied that the petitioner was acting in ma110er prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and services essenfral to the community and as such he is well acquainted with the facts deposed to below."

This allegation is reiterated and over-emphasised in paragraph 23 of the same affidavit wherein Mr. Mathur makes categorical averment which is as follows : " .... the deponent submits that in his capacity as the District Magistrate he was fully competent to make the im-pugned order of detention. The depcment further submits that on the basis of the evidence and the material placed be-F fore him, to which he has referred above he was personally and fully satisfied as to the existence of sufficient basis to make the impugned order with view to prevent the petitioner from indulging in activities prejudicial to the mainte'ilance of essen-tial services and supplies."

In this very affidavit Mr. Mathur goes •On to state that he had also fram-G ed draft of the grounds on November 8, 1974 and that Shri R. C. Arora who took over on November 12, 1974 served these grounds on the petitioner which were drawn by the deponent Mr. S. K. D. Mathur. In this comection the averment runs as follows :

"Sri R. C. Arora took over charge on November 12, 1974 and under his signature Sri Arora served these same grounds which the deponent had earlier drawn upon the petitioner."

According to the clear and categorical averments made by Mr, S. K. D. Mathur in his affidavit before the High Court the only role which was

assigned to Mr. R. C. Arora the permane'.1t District Magistrate was that he signed the grounds and served them on the detenu. In other words, according to Mr. S. K. D. Mathur, Mr. R. C. Arora was merely the se1ving officer and did not perform any other function in so far as the order of detention passed against the petitie1.1er was concerned and yet this officer is imprudent enough to allege in paragraph 25 of the counter-affidavit filed in this Court that the order of detention was passed not only by him but by the two detaining authorities, namely, Mr. R. C. Arora and Mr. S. K. D. Mathur. In this connectici.1 Mr. Mathur averred as follows :

"That the order of detention was passed by the detaining authorities after they had fully satisfied themselves about the existence of the grounds."

It would thus appear from this averment that the order of detention was not passed by one single person but by more than one persoa and taking the facts mentioned by the deponent it would appear that the order of detention appears to have been passed in two stages--in the first instance by Mr. S. K. D. Mathur who was full-fledged District Magistrate on November 8, I 974 whei.1 the order of detention was passed, but who according to his own statement had first prepared draft of the grounds. The order of detention was then signed by Mr. R. C. Arora on November 13, 1974 and served on the detenu. While Mr. S. K. D. Mathur took the clearest possible stand before the High Court that he alone had made the order of detention and he alone was satisfied about the sufficie'.1cy of the grounds, but in his affidavit before this Court he seems to suggest that there were two detaining authorities both of whom were satisfied. This shows the casual and cavalier man-ner in which the order of detention against the petitioner appears to have been passed in this case. Even if the order had been made by Mr. S. K. D. Mathur and signed by him, there could have been no objection in Mr. R. C. Arora serving the grounds on the petitioner, because the law does not require that the person who actually signs the order or the grounds must also serve the same on the detenu. But in this case it is not possible to determine as to who in fact made the order of detention.

It is true that the Court ca!anot go behind the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority, but such satisfaction does not confer blanket power which may authorise the detainin~ authoritv to ert in ruthless or arbitrary fashion and the judicial decisions have undoubted-ly carved out an area, theugh limited, with;n which the subjective satis-faction of the detaining authority can be tested on the touchstcme of objectivity. It is obvious that the subjective satisfaction of the detain-ing authority is sine qua non for the exercise of power nf netention and it has got to ·be exercised properly and discreetly. In Khudiram Das v. The State of West Bengal and others(") this Court made the following observations :

"The basic postulate on which the courts have proceeded is that the subjective sutisfaction bei.1g condition precedent for the exercise of the power conferred on the executive, the

(l) A. I. R. 1975 S. C. 550.

court can always examine whether the requisite satisfaction is arrived at by the authority; if it is not, the condition prece-dent to the exercise of the power would not be fulfilled and the exercise of the power would be bad."

I .1 the instant case, in view of the contradictory stand taken by the detaining authorities, we are satisfied that the exercise of jurisdiction to detain the petitioner has not been made with due care and cauti()]1 or in proper and fair manner. On this ground also the order of deten-tion stands vitiated.

Section 3 (1 ) of the Act ru•,1s thus ;

"3. (1) The Central Government or the State Govern-n1ent may,-

( a) if satis!l.ed with respect to any person (including foreig-ner) that with view to preventing him from acting in any manner prejudicial to-

(i) the defence of India, the relation of India with foreign powers, or the security of India, or

(ii) the security of the State or the maintenance of public order, or

(iii) the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community, or ( b) it satisfied with respect to any foreigner that with view to regulating his continued presence in India or with view to making arrangements for his ex-pulsion from India;

It is necessary so to do, make an order directing th•at such person be detained."

This power can also be exercised by the officers mentioned in sub-s. (2), and in the instant case we are concerned with the District Magis-trate. The words "make an order directing that such person be de-tained" clearly postulate three conditions-Ci) that the order must be made by the authority mentioned in s. 3; (ii) the order must be duly signed by the said authority; and (iii) that only one authority and one authority alone can pass such order of detention. The statute does not contemplate sort of composite or joi·at order passed by several authorities. In the instant case the original order of detention passed by Mr. S. K. D. Mathur bears his signature and even the grounds men-tioned bear his signature. In these circumstances we are unable to accept the affidavit of Mr. S. K. D. Mathur that the grounds framed by him were merely draft grou'ads prepared by him which were signed by the permanent District Magistrate later. It is obvious that unless the order made and the grounds prepared are signed by the authority concerned, the order is not made as contemplated J;>y s. 3 of the Act. Further more, since the order is based on grounds to be served on the detenu, the order of detention could be passed only if the grounds are i'll existence and are prepared contemporaneously, otherwise the order

of detention becomes purely illusory. In view, however, of the con-tradictory affidavits given by Mr. S. K. D. Mathur, it is difficult to determine whether Mr. S. K. D. Mathur or Mr. R. C. Arora passed the order of detention and as to who among them was satisfied re-garding the grounds of detention. This is also very serious infirmity from which the order of detention suffers and as result of which the order has to be set aside. There appears to us to be clear violation of the provisions of s. 3 of the Act in this case.

Lastly we may mention that although the petitioner has pleaded the question of ma/a fides in the instant case, it is not necessary for us to decide the same in the view we take in this case, and that is wby ·it was not seriously pressed by Mr. Asoke Sen i•a the course of his argu-ments before us.

For the reasons given above, we allow the petition and quash the order of detention passed against the petitioner on November 8, 1974 and direct the petitioner to be released forthwith.

Petition allowed.