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Showing contexts for: function of functionary in Ved Parkash Sikri @ Vedi vs Union Of India And Ors. on 8 August, 1990Matching Fragments
(7) Counsel for the petitioner has, thus, submitted that there could possibly be no question of these documents being material or relevant to enable the detaining authority to come to a subjective satisfaction for passing of the impugned order. It would be relevant to quote the reply of the respondents. All that has been stated by respondent no. 3 in the affidavit is that "no irrelevant document was considered by the detaining authority". The documents referred to by the learned counsel for the petitioner are application of the accused for the grant of B-Class facilities in the jail, power of attorney, list of documents, medical record and application by the petitioner addressed to the Enforcement Officer and also that he was suffering from fever and that he would appear the next day. I have carefully gone through the order of detention as also the aforesaid documents Submission of the learned counsel for the respondent has been that there was sufficient material on record with the specially empowered officer for his subjective satisfaction to pass the impugned order. He has also submitted that the detaining authority in fact had not placed reliance upon the aforesaid documents which are only referred to. I have given my thoughtful consideration to this submission out have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that this argument has no base. In paragraph 8 of the grounds of detention it has clearly been mentioned that while passing the detention order the detaining authority has relied upon the document mentioned in the enclosed list. The documents, in question are contained in pages 41 to 60. In these circumstances, it is too much on the part of learned counsel for the respondent to say that these documents are not relied upon. Counsel for the respondent was asked to disclose the manner in which the aforesaid documents could be said to contain material showing prejudicial activities of the petitioner. I am conscious of the fact that the decision has to be arrived at by the detaining authority by subjective satisfaction and court is not to sit over judgment to find cut if the material was sufficient or insufficient. However, in case the detaining authority relies upon irrelevant document it would clearly indicate that there was complete no application of mind. The law is well settled that all the material against a person has to be placed before the detaining authority who has to scrutinised the same and has to rely only on material documents showing the link of the person concerned with his prejudicial activities. In case Smt.Shalini Soni and others v. Union of India and Ors., , Supreme Court has observed as follows :- ".......It is an unwritten rule of the law, constitutional and administrative, that whenever a decision-making function is entrusted to the subjective satisfaction of a statutory functionary, there is an implicit obligation to apply his mind to pertinent and proximate matter only, eschewing the irrelevant and the remote' Where there is farther an express statutory obligation to communicate not merely the decision but the grounds on which the decision is founded, it is a necessary corollary that the grounds communicated, that is the grounds so made known, should be seen to pertain to pertinent and proximate matters and should comprise all the constituent facts and materials that went in to make up the mind of the statutory functionary and not merely the inferential conclusions. . . . . ."