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Judgment
P.D. Sharma, J.—These are twenty-nine petitions (Criminal Writs Nos. 14-C to 33-C of 1964 19-D, 21-D to 26-D, and 32-D of 1964 and Criminal Miscellaneous No. 355D of 1964) under Article 226 of the Constitution and Section 491 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and separately filed by twenty-nine detenues. Criminal Miscellaneous No. 358-D of 1964 has also been put by in by Rur Chand detenue who had earlier filed Criminal Writ No. 14-C of 1964. I propose dealing with all of them in this order as common questions of law and fact are involved therein.
The District Magistrate of Delhi passed orders of the petitioner''s detention under rule 30(A)(b) of the Defence of India Rules, 1962, (hereinafter referred to as the Rules) on various dates. He reported the above detentions to the Administrator under rule 30A(5) of the Rules in the case of Tejwant Singh (Criminal Writ No. 31-C of 1964) on the date the same was ordered and in all other cases after six days or more. The Administrator under rule 30A(6)(b) confirmed the detention orders in all of these cases. He also reviewed them from time to time as required by rules 33A(8). In some cases the review was done within six moths from the original order of detention passed by the District Magistrate and in others after the expiry of six months but within six months from the date of the confirmatory orders by him.* * *
The petitioners have impugned the validity of the orders of their detention on the grounds that the District Magistrate omitted to report the facts of their detention to the Administrator forthwith, that the detention orders were not reviewed by the Administrator within six months from the dates of their passing by the District Magistrate, and that the orders passed on review were not communicated to them as required by law. The other grounds urged by the detinues in their petitions in support of their pleas that the orders of detention were not valid in law were not pressed at the time of arguments and so those are not being mentioned here.
The District Magistrate-respondent maintained that he reported about his having passed detention orders of the petitioners forthwith to the Administrator and that the delay, if any, was due to unavoidable circumstances. He further pleaded that the Administrator was required by the law to review the petitioners'' order of detention within six months from the date he had confirmed them, that under the law he was not required to confirm them within a specified time, and that the Rules did not require that the orders passed by him on review should have been communicated to the petitioners.
The learned counsel for the petitioners in support of the grounds urged by the petitioners for declaring their detention as illegal referred to rule 30(5), (6)(b), and (8) which runs as under:
30-A. (5) Where a detention order is made by an officer empowered by the State Government or the Administrator, that officer shall fortwith report the fact to the reviewing authority referred to in clause (a) of sub-rule (4), or, as the case may be, to the Administrator.
(6) On the receipt of a report under sub-rule (5) -
(a) * * * *
(b) the Administrator shall, after taking into account all the circumstances of the case, either confirm the detention order or cancel it.
(8) Every detention order made by an officer empowered by the Administrator and confirmed by him under clause (b) of sub-rule (6) and every detention order made by the Administrator himself, shall be reviewed at intervals of not more than six months by the Administrator who shall decide upon such review whether the order should be continued or cancelled.
They maintained that the term "forthwith" means that the District Magistrate should have reported the fact of detention of the petitioners immediately after he passed the orders of their detention. In this connection they referred to the case, Keshav Nilkanth Joglekar v. The Commissioner of Police, Greater Bombay AIR 195 S.C.R. 653. The Supreme Court while interpreting the term "fortwith"'' which has been used in similar context in section 3(3) of the Preventive Detention Act, 1950, as in rule 30A(5) observed :
The word ''forthwith" in section 3(3) of the Prevention Detention Act, 1950, has not a fixed and an absolute meaning and it must be construed with reference to the object of the section and the circumstances of the case. It cannot mean the same thing as "as soon as may be" in section 7 of the Act and the former is more peremptory than the latter The difference between the two expressions lies in this that while u/s 7 the time that is allowed to the authority to send the communication to the detenue is what is reasonably convenient, u/s 3(3) what is allowed is only the period during which he could not without any fault of his own send the report.
An act which is to be done forthwith must be held to have been so done when it is done with all reasonable despatch and without avoidable delay.
It is common ground that except the case of Tejwant Singh (Criminal Writ No. 31-C of 1964), in which the report was sent on the same date the order of his detention was made, the detention of all other petitioners was reported to the Administrator after six days or more from the dates the orders of their detention were passed by the District Magistrate. No explanation worth consideration has been advanced by the District Magistrate about the delay that occurred in reporting the fact of detention of all the petitioners except Tejwant Singh. The learned counsel for the respondents urged that the District Magistrate could not report the fact of detention of the petitioners except Tejwant Singh before six days or more because he was busy with other important matters. In my opinion the explanation offered is too vague and indefinite and indeed does not sufficiently explain the inordinate delay which occurred in reporting the orders of detention passed in the cases of the petitioners except Tejwant Singh. It can, therefore, be said with certainty that the District Magistrate failed to report forthwith the orders of detention passed by him in the case of these petitioners.
The learned counsel for the respondent further urged that the provisions of rule 30A(5) were merely directory and not mandatory and so the delay in submitting the report referred to therein did not vitiate! the orders of detention. I am not prepared to agree with him. If the report was to be sent only for information this argument could hold good but in the present case the Administrator on receipt of the report was required either to confirm or cancel the orders of detention of the petitioners. He finally urged that since the orders of the petitioners'' detention were confirmed by the Administrator the delay in submitting reports to him stood condoned. This argument again is fallacious. The orders stood vitiated when the report was not sent to the Administrator forthwith and so his subsequent confirmation did not revive there validity. The Supreme Court recently in Biren Dutta and others v. The Chief Commissioner of Tripura and another Cr. Appeals. Nos. & 107 of 1964 & Writ Petitions Nos. & 43 of 1964 (Criminal Appeals Nos. 106 and 107 and Writ Petitions Nos. 42 and 43 of 1964) decided on 23rd July, 1964, inter alia laid down.
The fact that these cases were reviewed subsequently on the 25th September, 1963 and 11th March, 1964 and the decision of the authority was in fact communicated to them would not validate the illegal continuance of the detention of the detenus after six months had expired from the date of their original detention."
In the referred case, the Administrator, Tripura, failed to review the orders of detention of the petitioners within six months from the date those were originally made but subsequently review them within six months on 25th September, 1963 and 11th March, 1964 The Supreme Court attached no weight to the subsequent review of the detention orders which stood spent up as they had not been reviewed within six months from the date of the original detention. The same principle applies to the instant cases. In my opinion, the orders of detention of all the petitioners except Tejwant Singh (Criminal Writ No. 31-C of 1964) suffered from an informity which vitiated them. My view finds support from the decision of a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court in the case, Dr. B.P. Shukla v. State of Uttar Pradesh 1964 A.L.J. 43, which laid down;
Where the report of the detention was not sent to the reviewing authority "forthwith" and there was no reason whatsoever for the delay in reporting such detention there was a breach of clause (5) of rule 30A which had vitiated the detention.
The learned counsel for the petitioners went on urge that in some cases the Administrator failed to review the orders of detention of the petitioners within six months from the dates these were passed by the District Magistrate and so in their view this omission invalidated their detention. It is agreed that orders of all the petitioners were reviewed within six months from the date those were confirmed by the Administrator on receipt of reports from the District Magistrate. Similar question came up for decision before a Division Bench of this Court in the case, Harivansh v. Superintenpeot Central Jail at Tehar and another Cr. W. No. 10 D of 1963 (Criminal Writ No. 10 D of 1963) decided on 9th December 1963.
Their Lordships were pleased to observe in the matter as follows:
It is clear, however, that the interval of six months mentioned in sub rule (8) is to be counted from the date of the confirmation of the order by the Administrator, and that is why sub-rule (8) says that the detention order "confirmed by him under clause (b) of sub-rule (6) * * shall be reviewed at intervals of not more than six months.
If respectfully follow the law laid down in the above authority. Therefore, the petitioners cannot successfully contend that their detention was illegal because the Administrator failed to review the orders on their detention within six months those were originally passed by the District Magistrate. Similarly the objection that the orders passed on review by the Administrator should have been communicated to them is devoid of force because the Rules did not enjoin on the Administrator to so inform them. The same view was taken by the Allahabad High Court in the case, Nandan Singh Bhist Vs. State of U.P. and Another, , where it was held :
There is no provision of law directing the State Government to communicate the result of review of the detention order to the detenu and therefore, it cannot be said that on the mere ground that no specific information of the review on the earlier occasion was communicated to the applicant, his detention became illegal; but it is definitely advisable that result of each review should be communicated to the detenue because he is vitally interested in that order so that he may know that this is being reviewed according to law.
In the case of Tejwant Singh (Criminal Writ No. 31-C of 1964), the District Magistrate reported the orders of his detention on the same date it was passed and the Administrator reviewed the same within six months from the date of its original passing by the District Magistrate. The order of his detention does not suffer from any legal infirmity.
In the result, the petitions of all the petitioners except Tejwant Singh (Criminal Writ No. 31-C of 1964) are allowed and they were ordered to be set at liberty atonce. Criminal Writ No. 31-C of 1964 filed by Tejwant Singh stands dismissed.