Roshan Lal and Others vs The State

Teja Singh, C.J.—The following five petitions u/s 491, Code of Criminal Procedure relate to the persons respectively mentioned against them:

Cr. Misc. No. 110 of 1950 - Roshan Lal.

Cr. Misc. No. 112 of 1950 - Bhoj Raj.

Cr. Misc. No. 2 of 1951 - Karam Chand.

Cr. Misc. No. 3 of 1951 - Ram Saroop.

Cr. Misc. No. 10 of 1951 - Rattan Lal.

All the Petitioners were arrested and ordered to be detained for a period of six months u/s 3, Preventive Detention Act, 1950. Whereas Rattan Lal Petitioner was arrested on 25-1-1951, the arrests of the other Petitioners took place on 21-12-1950. Since the main points on which the orders of arrest & detention were challenged by the Petitioners are practically the same it will be convenient to dispose of them by one order.

The first point taken in the petitions was that Section 3, Preventive Detention Act, was ultra vires the Parliament and was against the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution. This was, however, not urged in the course of arguments because it was authoritatively held by the Supreme Court in A.K. Gopalan Vs. The State of Madras, that the Preventive Detention Act with the exception of Section 14 is intra vires the Constitution and Section 14 which was held to be illegal and ultra vires does not affect these petitions.

The second point was that the requirements of Section 3 in so far as they relate to the satisfaction of the detaining authority in the words of Sub-section (1) had not been fulfilled inasmuch as the Government under whose orders the Petitioners were arrested and detained was not satisfied with respect to the Petitioners that it was necessary to arrest them with a view to preventing them from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and services essential to this community. All that need be mentioned in this connection is that in each of these cases the counsel for the State has placed on record an affidavit by the Deputy Secretary, Home Department, that orders of detention in question were passed after complete satisfaction of the Government and further that there was material at the disposal of the Government on which this satisfaction was based. In the face of these affidavits it was for the Petitioners to prove affirmatively that satisfaction on the part of the Government was lacking as a matter of fact. It is true that in the affidavits put in by the Petitioners it was denied that the Government was satisfied but since none of the Petitioners could have direct knowledge on the point, and what was contained in their affidavits could only be based either upon conjecture or hearsay information, no importance could be attached to them.

Then it was urged that the grounds of detention supplied to the Petitioners were vague & incomplete & this by itself was sufficient to make their detention illegal. I concede that the provisions of Section 7 of the Act which lays down that when a person is detained in pursuance of a detention order the authority making the order shall communicate to him the grounds on which the order is made are imperative & if no grounds are furnished, or if the grounds furnished are so vague & incomplete that they do not enable the person detained to make an effective representation to the Govt., the order of detention becomes illegal. We discussed this aspect of the matter in Tilak Ram & Dewan Chand''s cases Cri. Misc. No. 8 of 1951 & Criminal Misc. No. 111 of 1950 that we decided recently. The question, however, is whether the grounds in the present petitions can be regarded as vague & incomplete. As we pointed out in those cases this is a question of fact to be decided with respect to facts of each case & consequently we must take up the grounds furnished to the different Petitioners separately. The following are the grounds furnished to Roshan Lal.

That you are a notorious black-marketeer & you are commonly known amongst all sections of the community for your anti-social activities. You refuse to sell except on black-market prices.

In the inquiry made against your activities a large cross-section of the community has come forward to complain against your anti social activities. The following may be cited. (1) on 1-10-1950 you sold six yards of Latba to L. Hans Raj son of Ved Chand Aggarwal of Bhatinda, at Rs. l/2 per yd. instead of -/7/- per yd. (ii). That on 29-11-1950 you refused to sell cloth at controlled rate to L. Chain Ram son of L. Mani Ram of Bhatinda except on black market rate. (iii), On 24-10-1950 you refused to sell cloth to L. Jewal Lal son of Sardari Lal Arora of Bhatinda except on blackmarket rate. He had to purchase 10 yards of Chintz cloth at -/6/- per yd. extra, (iv) That on 18-10-1950 Pala Singh son of Sundar Singh was compelled to purchase malmal at -/6/- per yd. extra as you had refused to sell otherwise.

The first ground gives no particulars whatsoever & is almost in the same terms as the grounds in the cases of Dewan Chand & Tilak Ram Cri. Misc. No. 111 of 1950 & of 8 195l which were held by us to be vague & incomplete. For the reasons given in those cases I hold that this ground is also vague & incomplete. Different however is the case regarding the second ground which mentions as many as four instances and gives the names of the persons as well as the dates to which they relate. It was argued before us that no person of the name of Ved Chand mentioned in part (i) of ground No. 2 existed in Bhatinda and further that the dates of the first and third instances were wrong. These facts were admitted on behalf of the State and we were told that Ved Chand was in fact Vir Chand, that Chain Ram''s name was Chanan Ram and the dates 21st October and 24th October were erroneously given as 1st October and 25th October. Borne of these mistakes as soon as they came to the notice of the Government were rectified and notified to the detenu concerned. As regards the 4th instance, all the particulars given therein were correct and this by itself could validly support the second ground.

The grounds furnished to the other petitioners were as follows.

Bhoj Raj:

That you are a notorious black marketeer in cloth. It is common knowledge in the town of Bhatinda that you refused to sell cloth at the price marked or fixed for a specified cloth.

In the inquiry made against your activities a large section of the community has come forward to complain against your anti-social activities. Some of the instances in which you have black-marketed cloth are noted: (i) L. Satpal s/o Ram Sahai, resident of Bhatinda was refused cloth at controlled rate. Chhint cloth which was priced at -/9/- a yard was offered for sale at -/l5/- a yard. Thakur Bhimsen on account of necessity purchased Chhint cloth at the price quoted by you (ii) L. Chain Ram s/o L Mani Ram resident of Bhatinda on 29th November 1950 was refused cloth at control rate and had to return without effecting any purchase. (iii) On 19th October 1950 Amrao Singh s/o Tulsi Ram was refused cloth at control rate as you had quoted Latha at the rate of Rs. 2/2/- per yd. instead of Rs. 1/2/- and you refused to sell it at lesser price, (iv) L. khanda Ram s/o Birbhan Aggarwal of Bhatinda on 4-12-50 purchased Chhint cloth at -/5/- per yd, over & above the price marked on the cloth; (v) That you refused to sell at rate printed on cloth to Atma Ram s/o Jodh Ram, resident of Bhatinda & charged him -/6/- per yd. over & above the rate of Latha for 10 yds. purchased by him. (vi) L. Kishori Lal s/o Nanak Chand Aggarwal, resident of Bhatinda had to purchase 8 yds. of Latha on 25-10-1950 at a price -/6/- per yd. over & above the fixed price as you had refused to sell otherwise.

Karam Chand Arora:

That you are a notorious black-marketeer & you are known as such to the community at Bhatinda. You refused to sell cloth except on black-market rates, & after charging price over & above those printed on the cloth.

Inquiry made against you has confirmed the allegation that you are indulging in anti-social activities. A good number of citizens of Bhatinda have come forward to complain against you. Some of the complaints are cited below: (i) That you refused Ajodhia Parshad, Municipal Commissioner to sell cloth at the rate printed on the cloth some time in the last week of October. You charged him -/8/- per yd. extra for the malmal purchased by him. (ii) That on 20th of October, you charged -/8/- per yd. extra from Jit Singh s/o Gopi Ram, Rajput of Bhatinda for six years of malmal purchased by him. You had refused to Bell at the price fixed. (iii) That on 15th October, you refused to sell Gauri Shankar son of Nanak Chand except at a rate -/4/- above the controlled

L. Ram Saroop:

That you are a notorious black-marketeer & refused to sell except on black market rates.

That on an inquiry made against you a large number of people have come to complain against your anti-social activities. Some of them are cited below :

(i) That you sold Gur at the rate of Rs. 28 per maund instead of Rs. 20 per maund to L, Kalwant Rai, Bhartya Merchant of Bhatinda.

(ii) That on 4-12-1950 you refused to sell Gur to L. Bhim Sen son of L. Kardu Mal Aggarwal of Bhatinda and sold Gur at the rate of Rs. 27 pec maund.

(iii) You sold Gar at the rate of Rs. 27 per maund to L. Gulab Chand son of L. Hardayal of Bhatinda and refused to sell otherwise.

(iv) That you sold Gur at the rate of Rs. 26 instead of Rs 20 per maund to L. Suraj Bhan son of Baru Ram Aggarwal of Bhatinda.

Rattan Lal:

That on 22-9-1950, 200 maunds of wheat-gram etc. being smuggled on camels and other means of transport from Narnaul to Rajasthan by certain persons including Ganeshi, Ami Lal, Birjia, Deep Lal, Omkar and Ghisa seized by the Police, It was substantially established that the stocks of foodgrains belonged to you and in the process of being smuggled out of the State by your hired agents.

That three thousand maunds of Bajra for the purpose of seed was allowed to District (sic) and given to your firm Messrs Rattan Lal Amolak Ram for distribution. A few days before 14-10-1950 you sold 20 maunds of Bajra to Messrs Lalita Pershad Ghaniya Lal, retail dealers in food grains at Narnaul (sic) whereas the controlled rate was Rs. 10-4-0 per maund only. Your firm manipulated to make entries in the register to show that the sale had been effected at the control rate.

That the refugee Grain Dealers Co-operative Association, Narnaul was allotted a depot in the name of Messrs Gurbachan Singh and Co. which firm is known to be financed by you. It was found on checking stocks of this depot that there was a surplus of 72 maunds sugar with them. It was peculiar that a retail depot holder should have such large stocks in surplus. It was more surprising to find that this stock of sugar have been pledged by you with the Bank of Patiala, obviously with a view to holding it back from distribution to the public and for purposes of black marketing.

As in the case of Roshan Lal, the first of the two grounds furnished to Bhoj Raj Karam Chand and Ram Saroop was vague and incomplete but the second ground was quite definite. In their case too certain mistakes were pointed out in some of the instances but they were all rectified. In addition we are still left with some instances in the case of each about which there were no mistakes whatsoever and they could form valid basic for the second ground.

It was also urged before us that because one of the two grounds furnished to each of the above mentioned Petitioners was vague even though the other ground might be regarded as good, the order of detention became illegal. This contention is wholly devoid of force. The condition would have been quite different if the ground had been beyond the scope of the Act, because in that case it could have been argued with reason that that might have affected the mind of the detaining authority. I wish to invite reference in this connection to a Full. Bench decision of the Bombay High Court In Re: Rajdhar Kalu Patil, where the following observations were made by Chagla Ag. C.J.:

If a reason is given for the detention of a person which is not within the scope and ambit of the Act conferring the power-upon the Government to detain, then the whole order is vitiated notwithstanding the fact that the other reasons given are good, because something may have operated upon the mind of the detaining authority which is foreign and extraneous to the purpose of the Act. But if some of the grounds given are not outside the scope and ambit of the Act but are merely vague and indefinite, it cannot be said that some extraneous consideration has weighed with the detaining authority in making the order it has made. Therefore, the Court must draw a sharp distinction between a ground which is outside the purview of the statute and a ground which is bad because it lacks precision and accuracy. In the latter case the ground has to be completely ignored as if no ground was furnished at all. If after criminating the grounds which are no grounds at all, inasmuch as they furnish no precise information to the detenu, there still remain a ground or grounds which are precise and accurate and which can justify the order, then there is no reason why the order made by the detaining authority should not stand.

This case was relied upon by a Bench of the Madras High Court in M.R.S. Mani Vs. District Magistrate and Another,

From what I have said above, it will be seen that though one of the grounds furnished to Bhoj Raj, Karam Ghand and Ram Sarup was vague and indefinite, the other ground was quite precise and specific. Following the principles laid down in the cases mentioned above, I hold that the detention orders did not become illegal because of the vagueness of one of the grounds. So far as Rattan Lal is concerned, all the three grounds supplied to him gave details and particulars and none of them can be regarded as indefinite and incomplete.

Then it was argued before us that the facts and particulars given in the grounds held by me to be precise and definite were wrong and were not founded upon facts. For example, we were told that the Petitioners never dealt in the commodities in respect of which they were alleged to have indulged in black-marketing, that some of the days on which they are alleged to have sold certain articles were Sundays on which days their shops remained closed, that no transactions of the kind to which some of the grounds related had ever been entered into by them, that the book of account & stock books kept by some of the Petitioners would show that the articles which they were alleged to have refused to sell to certain intending purchasers, unless they were offered black-market price, were not in their stock, etc. etc. In short the Petitioners'' position on this point was that the information on the basis of which the detaining authority purported to be satisfied was false & this fact by itself invalidated the orders of arrest & detention. Now it is settled law that satisfaction contemplated by Section 3 of the Detention Act is the satisfaction of the detaining authority & not that of the Court. From this it follows that the question that the material placed before the detaining authority upon which his satisfaction was based, was false or true or that he was misled in forming the satisfaction is irrelevant. The case law on the point was considered by me in Babu Ram''s case 1 Pepsu L.R. 447 and it was held that so long as there is material before the authority on which the said authority bases his satisfaction & proceeds to act thereon, the Court has no jurisdiction to scrutinise that material.

The last point urged before us by the Petitioners'' counsel was that in view of the grounds supplied to them all that can be said is that the satisfaction of the detaining authorities was merely confined to their belie f that it was necessary to arrest and detain them in order to prevent them from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies, whereas according to law what was necessary was that their activities should be prejudicial both to the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community. In support of his contention, learned Counsel emphasized the words of Sub-clause (iii) of Clause (a) of Section 3 of the Act under which action was taken against all the Petitioners. The counsel argued that by using the words "and" between the words "services" and "supplies" the legislature intended that the mere fact that a person was likely to act in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies cannot justify action u/s 3(a)(iii), and that in order to attract the application of Section 3(a)(iii) it should further be shown that his activities were likely to be prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies as well as services essential to the community. The learned Advocate General argued that the word "and" in Sub-clause (iii) was not used in the ordinary sense and that it was equivalent to "or". I agree that in order to give effect to the real intention of the legislature it may sometimes be necessary to bold that the conjunction "and" means "or" or vice versa. But by reading the whole of Clause (a) and by comparing the words of Sub-clause (iii) to those of the other Sub-clauses, I am inclined to think that the word "and" was used in the ordinary sense, otherwise "or" could have been easily used for its as it was used at the end of each sub-clause, including Sub-clause (iii) and also in the middle of Sub-clause (ii) Accordingly I agree with the Petitioners'' counsel that when a person is detained under Sub-clause (iii) of Clause (a) of Section 3, the detaining authority must be satisfied that the detention is essential with a view to preventing the person concerned from action in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies as well as services essential to the community. Where I do not agree with the counsel is regarding the interpretation that they put upon the words "services." They appear to think that the "services" means the various departments of the Govt. and since the activities of a person who indulges in black-marketing or profiteering cannot by any stretch of imagination be regarded as prejudicial to any of such departments, orders for Petitioners'' arrest and detention were illegal.

Now it is true that one of the meanings of the word "service" is occupation or status of a servant, and when used in plural it can mean persons holding a particular occupation or members of a particular department. But I do not think that it is used in this sense in Sub-clause (iii) It will be seen that the clause speaks of the maintenance of supplies and services and if the word ''''services" were to refer to members of a department or departments, the maintenance of services would convey no sense. By turning to the dictionary I find that the term "service" also means a supply of needs, use, act or means of supplying some general demand etc., and loosely, all the auxiliary activities in the production or distribution of a product. (Webster''s New International Dictionary of the English Language, Edn. 2. Vol. It, p. 2288). Since supplies and services are bracketed together and the object of the legislature appears to be to keep intact their maintenance, my opinion is that the services as used in Sub-clause (iii) merely means the moans an methods necessary for regulating & maintain supplies. Since grain, gur and cloth are essential to the community and the detaining authorities were satisfied that the Petitioners wore indulging in black-marketing in respect of thorn, I have no hesitation in holding that they were justified in thinking that their cases fell within the purview of Section 3(a)(iii), Preventive Detention Act. The result, in my opinion, is that all these petitions fail and must be dismissed.

Passey, J.

I agree.