Arun Sharma vs Union Of India And Ors.
1989 Latest Caselaw 545 Del

JUDGMENT

P.K. Bahri, J.

(1) This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India read with Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure has been brought seeking quotient of detention order dated May, 19, 1989, passed by respondent No. 2 under Section 3(1) of the conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974, with a view to preventing the petitioner from acting in any manner prejudicial to the argumentation of foreign exchange.

(2) Various grounds have been urged in support of the petition but it is not necessary to deal with' all those ground's because this writ petition is liable to succeed on a very short ground.

(3) Ok page 12 of the writ petition in ground No. Iv (whereas it should have been numbered as VIII), the petitioner has pleaded that he bad made a representation dated June 9, 1989, in which besides other things he had requested for supply of some documents which had been relied upon and referred to in the grounds of detention but despite the said request some of the documents and particularly the documents seized from the front office, have not been supplied and thus, his right of making an effective and purposeful representation stands hampered making his continued detention as bad.

(4) In the counter-affidavit filed by Shri A. K. Batabyal, Joint Secretary, a plea has been taken in para 9 of the counter that documents from pages 1 to 239 had been supplied to the petitioner on his request made in the aforesaid representation. While replying to ground No. Iv the matter has not been made clear. The specific averment has been made in ground No. Iv that the documents, which had been recovered from the front office and which had been relied upon and referred to in the grounds of detention, had not been supplied. No specific averment has been made with regard to the said documents in whole of the affidavit. A bald plea has been taken that the documents had been supplied to the detenu. It is not out of place to mention that the documents bearing pages Nos. 1 to 239 have been supplied without giving any index of those pages or the particulars of the said documents in the index. I required counsel for the parties to check those documents and indicate whether the documents which had been recovered from the front office and find mention at serial No. 6 of the representation stand supplied or not. Counsel for the respondents frankly conceded that by inadvertence the said documents have not been supplied. This is not disputed before me . by the learned counsel for the respondents that these documents stand at least casually referred to in the grounds of detention.

(5) The learned counsel for the petitioner has referred to Hyder v. Union of India & Others. , wherein it has been laid down by this Court that in case the detenu makes a request for supply of some documents which have been casually referred to in the grounds of detention to enable him to make an effective and purposeful representation and such documents are not supplied, the same has the effect of depriving the detenu of his right for making an effective and purposeful representation which vitiates the detention order. So, following the said judgment, I hold that the detention of the petitioner has become illegal for omission of the respondents to supply the aforesaid documents to the petitioner on demand being made although those documents admittedly stand referred to in the grounds of detention.

(6) I allow the writ petition and quash the continued detention of the petitioner and direct that the petitioner be released from Jail, if not required to be detained in any other case.