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CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Criminal Appeal No. 322 of 1987.

From the Judgment and Order dated 19.1.1987 of the Bombay High Court in Criminal Writ Petition No. 103 of 1986.

Hardev Singh and Ms. Madhu Moolchandani for the Appellant. B.A. Masodkar, A.S. Bhasme and A.M. Khanwilkarforthe Respondent.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by SEN, J. This appeal by special leave is directed against the judgment and order of the High Court of Bombay dated January 19, 1987 rejecting the petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution filed by the appellant in the High Court for grant of a writ of habeas corpus. The appellant has been placed under detention by the impugned order dated September 7, 1986 passed by the District Magistrate, Beed under s. 3(2) of the National Security Act, 1980 on his being satis- fied that it was necessary to do so 'with a view to prevent- ing him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the mainte- nance of public order'. The appellant challenged the im- pugned order of detention on grounds inter alia that there was infraction of the constitutional safeguards enshrined in Art. 22(5) read with s. 8 of the Act inasmuch as there was inordinate, unexplained delay on the part of the detaining authority to consider and dispose of his representation. On the view that we take, it is not necessary to deal with the facts elaborately. The material facts are these. The appellant was taken into custody on September 8, 1986 and was lodged at the Aurangabad Central Prison, Aurangabad where he is now detained. He was served with the grounds of detention along with the copies of the relevant documents on September 14, 1986. It appears that a week thereafter i.e. on September 22, 1986 he addressed a representation to the Chief Minister through the Superintendent, Aurangabad Cen- tral Prison, Aurangabad which the Superintendent forwarded to the Home Department on September 24, 1986. The State Government, in the meanwhile, under s. 3 (4) of the Act accorded its approval to the impugned order of detention on September 18, 1986. On October 6, 1986 the appellant made another representation to the Advisory Board which met and considered the same on October 8, 1986. On October 13, 1986 the Advisory Board after considering the representation made by the appellant together with the materials placed before it forwarded its report to the State Government recommending confirmation of the impugned order of detention as there was, in its opinion, sufficient cause for the detention of the appellant. Acting upon the report of the Advisory Board, the State Government by its order dated November 19, 1986 confirmed the order of detention. In the mean-

ment in such matters: Niranjan Singh v. State of Madhya Pradesh, [1973] 1 SCR 691; Habibullah Khan v. State of West Bengal, [1974] 4 SCC 275; Jagdish Prasad v. State of Bihar & Anr., [1974] 4 SCC 455 and Mohd. Alam v. State of West Bengal, [1974] 4 SCC 463.

In the present case, in answer to the notice issued by this Court under Art. 136, the affidavit in reply has been filed by Shri S.V. Joshi, District Magistrate, Beed who passed the impugned order of detention. There is a general denial in paragraph 2 of the counter-affidavit that there was unreasonable delay in the disposal of the representation made by the appellant. However, the delay in disposal of the representation was in the Secretariat and therefore it is averred in paragraph 11:

"I say that the representation dated 22nd September, 1986 addressed to the Chief Minis- ter by the detenu was forwarded by the Super- intendent, Aurangabad Central Prison, Auranga- bad on 24th September, 1986. I further say that the said representation was received in the Department on 26th September, 1986. I further say that the parawise remarks on the said representation were called for from the detaining authority, i.e. District Magistrate, Beed on 26th September, 1986 and remarks of the District Magistrate dated 3rd October, 1986 were received by the Government on 6th October, 1986. I further say that thereafter, the said representation was processed together with report of the Advisory Board and as stated in the earlier paragraphs, the said representation was rejected and the detention of the detenu was confirmed by the Chief Minister on 17th November, 1986."