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Judgment
M.M. Punchhi, J.
The District Magistrate, Chandigarh on 2641984 passed an order of detention under section 3 of the National Security Act, 1980 against the petitioner Kirpal Singh Bajwa. That order is Annexure P. 1. annexed with this petition for habeas corpus on his behalf. Supportive of the detention order are grounds contained in Annexure P. 2. There is no challenge to the frame of the detention order but an intrinsic challenge directed to the supportive grounds.
The petitioner carried on the work of a Typist in the verandah of the Estate Officer Building, Sector 17, Chandigarh under a licence issued by the concerned authority. The first ground mentioned that different occasions, the petitioner had distributed pamphlets to persons of the sikh community who came into his contact, at the aforesaid place of his working. Those instances were four in number and were asserted to have taken place on 20.1.1984, 2411984 and 2811984 as also on 64.1984. It would be futile to burden this judgment with the details of those pamphlets. Suffice it to mention that those contained seditious and secessionist material inciting the Sikh community to eliminate the Hindus and other communities who were against the creation of the State of Khalistan, and, preached for the establishment of khalistan, by a variety of means. Their details can be had under subheads (a),(b),(c) and (d) of of ground No. 1 of the grounds of detention. The petitioner challenges ground No. 1 and the instances mentioned therein on the basis that there was no material with the detaining authority in support of the ground. And further there was no material with the detaining authority to support the assertion that the pamphlets had been distributed to the Sikh Community. As against this, the detaining authority on its affidavit has stated that the instances were reported in police diaries on the aforementioned dates having been received from special informers. It has also been explained by the learned counsel for the Chandigarh Administration that though in the reports, it was mentioned that the pamphlets had been distributed to the public, the inference drawn by the detaining authority was not farfetched that those pamphlets had been distributed amongst the Sikh Community amongst whom could be the possible sympathisers and protogonists for the creation of Khalistan. According to him, the material supportive of the grounds was adequate and beyond challenge.
The second ground of detention was that the petitioner on the different occassion gave provocative speeches to Sikh gatherings and acted in a manner prejudicial to public order. One was on 15 41981 at Gurdwara Nada Sahib, District Ambala, which is close to Chandigarh. The other instance was of his address to a gathering on 1941984 at Gurdwara, Sector 19D, Chandigarh. Here again I would not burden this judgment with the details of the provocations said to have been offered by the petitioner but suffice it to mention that he preached hatred between the Sikh community and the others, preached violence the petitioner himself being an exserviceman, and declared his view that the Sikhs were a separate nation. The details are available in subheads (a) and (b) of ground No2. Here again the challenge is that there was no supportive material with the detaining authority as to the existence of these grounds. The detaining authority has supported them on the basis that there was police reports recorded in the police diaries of the said dates mentioning the provocative speeches made by the, petitioner. As explained by the learned counsel for the Chandigarh Administration, the occurrence relating to 1541984 of Gurdwara Nada Sahib was based on the report of a police officer and the other one of 1941984 1984 of Gurdwara Singh Sabha of Sector 19, Chandigarh was on the information of a special informer. According to him, this was enough supportive material to entertain the grounds.
The third ground, though enumerated at subhead (c) of ground No. 2. was that the petitioner on 2441981 at about 4.30 P. M. in Sector 17. Chandigarh came in clash with one Raj Kumar, a resident of S.C.O. No 18788, Sector17, when he forebade him to desist from propagating against the Hindus as he was doing so. At that time, the petitioner was said to be uttering that the Sikhs have been suppressed and that on 184 1984 Hindus had committed excesses on the Sikhs which were intolerable by them Then Raj Kumar tried to make the petitioner understand that Hindus and Sikhs were one but his sincere advice ended in smoke and instead the petitioner gave him a threat to his life on that account. He was arrested by the police for the incident and was proceeded against for security proceedings by the police of PoliceStation, Sector 17, Chandigarh. The supportive report was available. Challenge to this ground as offered by the petitioner, was that it was solitary instance for which the petitioner was proceeded against for security proceedings. This, according to him, could hardly he formed a ground for coming to the view that the petitioner was to be detained for preventing him fromacting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order. The detaining authority claimed the ground to be valid on the basis of the predeliction and inclinations of the petitioner, justifying his detention.
The fourth ground taken was that the District Magistrate was not authorised under the law to pass the detention order only the Administrator of the Union Territory of the Central Government could have passed one. This ground was not pressed by the learned counsel for the petitioner and was rather in specific words given up.
The learned counsel for Chandigarh Administration pressed into service section 5A of the National Security (Second Amendment) Ordinance, 1984 dated 216 1984 which reads as follows :
"5 A. Where a person has been detained in pursuance of an order or detention (whether made before or after the commencement. of the National Security (Second Amendment) Ordinance 1984) under section 3 which has been made on two or more grounds, such order of detention shall be deemed to have been made separately on each of such grounds and accordingly :
(a) such order shall not be deemed to be invalid or inoperative merely because one or some of the grounds is or are:
(i) vague,
(ii) nonexistent,
(iii) not relevant,
(iv) not connected or not proximately connected with such person or
(v) invalid for any other reason whatsoever, and it is not, therefore, possible to hold that the Government or officer making such order would have been satisfied as provided in section 3 with reference to the remaining ground or grounds and made the order of detention :
(b) the Government or officer making the order of detention shall be deemed to have made the order of detention under the said section after being satisfied as provided in that section with reference to the remaining ground or grounds."
On that basis it was claimed that the detention order was beyond challenge.
Dealing with the challenge to the grounds seriatim, it is noticeable that the District Magistrate while passing orders of detention on 164(sic) had before him the report of the Senior Superintendent of Police dated 2541984 in which details of the activities of the petitioner had been furnished There was supportive material to that report in the form of entries on the daily. diary registers dated 2011984, 2411984, and 621984 It is therefrom that the District Magistrate arrived at the subjective satisfaction that the petitioner be preventively detained under the National Security Act, 1980. He could rightly infer that the pamphlets were meant for the Sikh community for the text of those was selfevident. It was not necessary for him to have required the Senior Superintendent of Police to furnish him to identity of special informers referred to in the entries of the daily diary register, as has been urged by the learned counsel, for the petitioner. It was equally futile for the learned counsel to contend that when the names of the informers had not been supplied to the petitioner, he stood prejudiced in making an effective representation against the detention order. The Supreme Court in the State of Punjab and others v. Jagdev Singh Talwandi, A.I.R. 1984 Supreme Court 444, has in paragraph 23 of the report, while taking stock of the earlier case law, observed as follows :
"These cases show that the detenu is not entitled to be informed of the ''source of information received against him, or the evidence which may have been collected against him as, for example, the evidence corroborating that the report of the C. 1. D. is true and correct ... That question does not arise here since no such thing is referred to or relied upon in the first ground of detention. Indeed the furnishing of the C.I.D. report, of which a truncated extract was furnished to the respondent, was a superfluous exercise in the light of the facts of the instant case,"
In that case. the C.I.D. report was supplied to the detenu along with the grounds of detention with the express stipulation that. it, formed the base of the grounds of detention. It was supplied eventhough the grounds mentioned every one of the details. The C.I.D. report was furnished to the detenu as forming the source of information leading to the conclusion that he had made a speech which necessitated, his detention in the interest of public order. In the circumstances, the Supreme Court held that the grounds and material furnished to the detenu had to be read together as if the material in the form of C.I.D. report was a continuation of the grounds of detention, In my view analogous is the position here. Instead of the C.I.D. report, the detaining authority had daily diary reports coming forth from public documents prepared, three of them months ago, in the ordinary course of discharge of duties by police officers On those reports, the District Magistrate in the instant case could come to the requisite satisfaction on a reasonably anticipated prognosis of future behaviour of the petitioner made on the basis of past incidents. And he has said so in that regard on word of oath which in the instant case is not easy to dislodge.'' Thus, I hold that ground No. 1 was validly entertained by the detaining authority. The order of detention is. therefore, unassailable in view of section 5A of the Ordinance aforequoted qua other grounds.
What has been held for ground No. 1 can also hold good for ground No. 2, subheads (a) and (h). To recapitulate, there were two supporting daily diary reports about the inflammatory speeches made by the petitioner at two occasions. Jagdev Singh Talwandi''s case (supra) would apply to this ground as well putting the detention order beyond challenge on the ostensible plea of lack of supportive material. Thus, I hold that ground No. 2 (a) and (b) of the detention order is valid and unassailable. The remaining grounds are beyond challenge under section 5A of the Ordinance above quoted.
Lastly, in support of challenge to ground No 2 (c), the learned counsel for the petitioner relied on Smt. Bimla Dewan v. The Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, A.I.R. 1982 Supreme Court 1257, to contend that the occurrence quoted did not have any potentiality to interfere with or to have effect on public tranquillity and thus could not constitute a ground for detention. The argument loses sight of the principle of law embodied in section 107 or the code of Criminal Procedure which provides, for a preventive step against a person likely to commit a breach of the peace, or disturb the public tranquillity. or to do any wrongful act that any occasion a breach of peace or disturb the public tranquillity. The petitioner was proceeded against for security proceedings under that'' section. Besides that. his utterances at the time of the incident with Raj Kumar. aforereferred to, showed his proclivities and leanings justifying the detaining authority to resort to preventive detention. It was for this reason that the account of all the aforereferred to activities formed the basis of the detention order. The District Magistrate rightly took the step. This ground too was rightly entertained by the District Magistrate and I hold that it was unchallengeable. Even otherwise, it had the protection of section SA of the Ordinance aforequoted.
For the foregoing reasons, there is no merit in this petition which fails and is hereby dismissed but without any order as to costs.