High Court: Decision & action of Externment should not be vitiated by Arbitrariness, Unfairness or Illegality (Read Judgement)

Justice Milind N. Jadhav passed judgment in the case titled Rahul v. State of Maharashtra setting aside the externment order, finding it unsuitable as it was affecting the freedom of the petitioner.

Background:

The petitioner challenged the order passed by the respondent directing externment of the petitioner from city of Nagpur and Nagpur District for a period of 1½ years.

The court found out, there was not a shred of evidence in the show cause notice as well as in the impugned order to show that the petitioner had involved himself in threatening the witnesses. The provisions of Section 56 of the Maharashtra Police Act of 1951 were mainly based on substantive satisfaction of the Authority empowered to pass such orders, since such orders adversely affect personal liberty of the individual and it was expected from the Authority concerned to indicate in brief, the grounds on which such beliefs of substantive satisfaction was based upon.

The Court did not find any show cause notice issued to the petitioner under the provisions of the Act of 1951 prior to filing the case. In 2015 to 2017, the petitioner had given a final bond of good behaviour initially for a period of 2 years and thereafter for a further period of one year. Therefore, prima facie, there appeared gross delay to the Court in issuance of show cause notice in the year 2018 about an incident which had occurred in 2013 and which found mention in the show cause notice issued to the petitioner.

The impugned order never disclosed the gist of the complaint to the petitioner and it has resulted into denial of opportunity to the petitioner to defend himself properly. On this ground alone the externment order was liable to be set aside. The Court established that this ground which was the basis for issuance of the externment order vitiated the externment order.

The High Court of Bombay stated:

“While passing such an order, it is to be borne in mind that decision and action of externment should not be vitiated by arbitrariness or unfairness or illegality or irrelevant all together converging into the famous Wednesbury principle that there are well defined limits to the power of judicial review that a Writ Court can exercise over such an order passed as a part of administrative function of the Authority, because it affects freedom of the person.”

The Court set aside the Order of externment observing it to be wholly unsustainable.

Read the Judgment: