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1. In this petition under Article 32 of the Constitution the petitioner Mohd. Salim Khan, a detenu under the West Bengal (Prevention of Violent Activities) Act, being President's Act XIX of 1970, seeks to challenge the legality of the order of detention passed against him and his detention thereunder.

2. The impugned order was passed by the Additional District Magistrate, 24 Parganas on June 18, 1971 under Sub-section (1) read with Sub-section (3) of Section 3 of the Act, being satisfied that it was necessary to detain the petitioner with a view to preventing him from acting in a manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order. In pursuance of the said order the petitioner was arrested on the same day and has since then been detained in jail. At the time of his arrest he was served with a copy of the grounds of detention.

7. It appears, however, that prior to the passing of the impugned order on June 18, 1971, the petitioner had been arrested by the police on May 22, 1971 in connection with the two incidents alleged in the said grounds for detention and proceedings had thereafter been taken against him in the Court of the Magistrate, First Class, Midnapore. In those proceedings the petitioner appears to have taken a some what different plea of alibi, in support of which he had produced an affidavit of one Sk. Nuruddin Ahmed dated September 23, 1971. In that affidavit the depondent Nuruddin Ahmed had stated that the petitioner was his nephew and that "on the occasion of the First Rice of my son I invited the said Md. Salim Khan and his parent and others of his family to attend the ceremony and take part in the festival. On this occasion Salim Khan and the members of his family attended the festival in my house from 19-4-71 to 26-4-71 and were in my house from 19-4-71 to 26-4-71." This plea was repeated by the petitioner in the present writ petition in its para 10, obviously with a view to challenge the statement in the said grounds of detention that the petitioner had on April 22, 1971, on two occasions, thrown bombs on buses in the Chetla Central Road and also in the Southend Park. The two pleas asserting alibi were clearly at variance with each other.