S. Dhandapani vs The Inspector of Police, Food Cell, C.I.D.

Kailasam, J.—Shanmugasundaram, a resident of Pollachi, Coimbatore district, was arrested on 31st July 1973 by the Inspector of Police, Food Cell, Pollachi on a warrant of arrest issued by the Collector and Additional District Magistrate, Coimbatore under Sub-section (1) read with Clause (b) of Sub-section (2) of Section 3 of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (Central Act XXVI of 1971) hereinafter referred to as the Act. From that date Shanmughasundaram is in detention. The grounds of order of detention were served on Shanmughasundaram in due time, he made his representation. the same was placed before the Advisory Board and after obtaining the opinion of the Advisory Board, the State Government has confirmed the order of detention u/s 12 of the Act. This writ petition for Habeas Corpus is filed by one Dhandapani, a cousin of the detenu, The order of detention is attached broadly on two grounds, namely, (i) that the provisions of the Act are ultra vires the Constitution and (ii) that even if the provisions of the Act are not so ultra vires, the grounds of order of detention are vague and irrelevant resulting in the denial of an opportunity to the detenu to make an effective representation against the detention. The grounds of detention are two in number. The second ground is really the first in point of time. The purport of the same is that at about 3 a.m. on 3rd July 1973, lorry MDN 8553 loaded with 100 bags of rice was intercepted at Thavalam road junction on the Pollachi-Palghat road, thereby preventing smuggling of rice from this State to Kerala and that investigation revealed that the said rice bags had been loaded in the lorry from the detenu''s godown at Pollachi. The other ground which is mentioned as No. 1 is that when the detenu''s godown was searched by the police on 6th July 1973, 141 bags of rice were found to have been hoarded in a bathroom, that the account books of the detenu who is a licensed rice dealer did not reveal the above stock, that the detenu had hoarded the said 141 bags of rice for the purpose of smuggling the same from Tamil Nadu to Kerala. Till order further says that there was reasonable apprehension that unless Shanmughasundaram was detained under the provisions of the Act, he would continue to indulge in activities similar to those mentioned above, which would be prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies of commodities like rice, essential to the people of Coimbatore district.

Whether the provisions of the Act are violative of any of the Articles of the Constitution is the first question. Mr. S. Palaniswami, the learned Counsel for the Petitioner, raised five propositions in this regard. They are:

Section 3 of the Act is violative of Articles l4 and 19(1)(d) of the Constitution and the same is not saved by Article 19(5).

Section 8 of the Act is violative of Article 22(5) of the Constitution inasmuch as under the said section, there is no obligation on the part of the appropriate Government to consider the representations made by the detenu.

Section 11 of the Act is also violative of Article 22(5) of the Constitution inasmuch as all the materials placed before the Advisory Board are not made available to the detenu and, therefore, he is denied opportunity to make effective representation.

Section 12 of the Act -violates principles of natural justice as the detenu has no opportunity to have a personal hearing before the Advisory Board and the Board''s report upon which the State Government confirms the order of detention is not made available to the detenu.

Section 13 of the Act is violative of Clause 14(a) read with Clause (7)(b) of Article 22 of the Constitution, inasmuch as in the above section of the Act, though the maximum period of detention is prescribed as one year, it is not with reference to the class or classes of cases as contemplated under Clause (7)(b) of Article 22.

The relevant constitutional provisions may be noted. Article 14 of the Constitution guarantees equality before law and equal protection of the law. While Clause (1)(d) of Article 19 guarantees to all citizens the right to move freely throughout the territory of India, Clause (5) of the said Article permits legislation imposing reasonable restriction in respect of such rights, Article 21 says that no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. Article 256 read with item 9 in List I of the Seventh Schedule and item 3 in List III of the said schedule confers power on the Parliament or the Legislature of a State as the case may be to make law for preventive detention for reasons stated in the said items. Under item 9 of List I, Parliament can make law for preventive detention for reasons connected with (i) Defence, (ii) Foreign affairs and (iii) the security of India, as well as in respect of persons subjected to such detention. Under item 3 of List III, Parliament as well as the State Legislature can make law providing for preventive detention for reasons (1) connected with the security of the State, (2) the maintenance of public order and (3) maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community; as well as regarding persons subjected to such detention. However, Article 22(4) restricts the power of Parliament as well as that of the State Legislature in making such laws of preventive detention. The said clause says that no law providing for preventive detention shall authorise the detention of a person for a longer period than three months. But there are two sub-clauses which are in the nature of exceptions. Sub-clause (d) is to the effect that if an Advisory Board consisting of persons who are, or have been, or are qualified to be appointed as, Judges of a High Court has reported before the expiration of the said period of three months that there is in its opinion sufficient cause for such detention, then the detention can be for a longer period than three months. Sub-clause (b) of Clause (4) read with Clause 7 (a) and (b) of Article 22 contemplates detention for a longer period than three months without the intercession of an Advisory Board. Clause 7 (a) specially empowers Parliament alone to make a law providing for preventive detention for period longer than three months without obtaining the opinion of the Advisory Board, if it prescribes the circumstances under which or the class or classes of cases in which a person may be so detained; and Clause 7 (b) empowers the Parliament to prescribe the maximum period of detention in respect of such class or classes of cases. Clause (5) of Article 22 says that if any person is detained in pursuance of an order made under any law providing for preventive detention, the authority making the order shall, as soon as may be, communicate to such person the grounds on which the order has been made and shall afford him the earliest opportunity of making a representation against the order.

The Act, the provisions of which are challenged, is one made by the Parliament and the same covers all the six subjects enumerated in item (9) of List I and item (3) of List HI of Seventh Schedule. Clause (4) (b) of Article 22 read with Sub-clauses (a) and (b) of Sub-clause (7) of the said Article has no application to the provisions of the Act as it now stands. The Parliament did introduce a provision (Section 17-A) in the Act under the special powers conferred on it by Clause (7) (a) of Article 22. Under that provision, an order of detention can be made for a period longer than three months without intercession of an Advisory Board. But the Supreme Court has struck down the said section in the case reported in Sambhu Nath Sarkar Vs. The State of West Bengal and Others, on the ground that the said section has failed to comply with the requirement of Clauses (7) (a) of Article 22.

Coming to the relevant provisions of the Act, Sub-section (1) of Section 3 confers power on the Central Government as well as a State Government to make orders for preventive detention. Sub-section (2) of the said section says that the Officers enumerated therein, namely, the District Magistrates, Additional District Magistrates specially empowered by the State Government and Commissioners of Police, wherever they have been appointed, may also exercise the power conferred by Sub-section (1), under certain circumstances. u/s 3(1)(a), the order of preventive detention can be made if any person has acted in any manner prejudicial to (i) the defence of India, the relations of India with foreign powers, or the security of India, or (ii) the security of the State or the maintenance of public order, or (iii) the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community. (Sub-section (1) (b) of Section 3 relates to foreigners). While the Central Government or the State Government is empowered to pass an order of preventive detention under any one of the three clauses mentioned above, the Officers enumerated under Sub-section (2) are authorised to exercise the power only in respect of Sub-clauses (ii) and (iii) of Section 3(1)(a). Before exercising the power u/s 3, the Central or the State Government or the Officers enumerated in Sub-section (2) as the case may be, shall have subjective satisfaction in that regard. Section 8 provides for communication to the person detained, the grounds on which the order has been made. It says that the authority making the order shall, as soon as may be, but ordinarily not later than five days and in exceptional circumstances and for reasons to be recorded in writing not later than fifteen days, from the date of detention, communicate to the person so detained the grounds on which the order has been made and Shall afford him the earliest opportunity of making a representation against the order of the appropriate Government. Sub-section (2) of the said section says that facts which the authority considered to be against the public interest need not be disclosed to the person , detained. Section 9 provides for constitution of Advisory Boards which consist of three persons who are, or have been, or are qualified to be appointed as Judges of a High Court. Section 10 provides that within thirty days from the date of detention, the grounds on which the order has been made and the representation if any made by the person affected by the order, and in case where the order has been made by an officer, also the report by such officer shall be placed before the Advisory Board. Section 11 provides for the procedure to be adopted by the Advisory Board. Section 12(1) says that in any case where the Advisory Board has reported that there is in its opinion sufficient cause for the detention of a person, the appropriate Government may confirm the detention order and continue the detention of the person concerned for such period as it thinks fit. Section 13 says that the maximum period for which any person may be detained in pursuance of any detention order which has been confirmed u/s 12(1) shall be twelve months from the date of detention.

In A.K. Gopalan Vs. The State of Madras, the majority view was that Article 22 was a self-contained code and therefore a law of preventive detention would not have to satisfy the requirements of Articles 14, 19 and 21. However, the above view has been disapproved by the Supreme Court in Rustom Cavasjee Cooper Vs. Union of India (UOI), which subsequent view has been referred to with approval in Sambhu Nath Sarkar Vs. The State of West Bengal and Others, . The view of Fazal Ali J., who delivered the minority judgment in A.K. Gopalan Vs. The State of Madras, has been approved by the subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court. As the learned Judge said. Article 22 does not exclude the operation of Articles 19 and 21 and it must be read subject to those two Articles in the same way as Articles 19 and 21 must be read subject to Article 22. The learned Judge also says that the correct position is that Article 22 must prevail in so far as there are specific provisions therein regarding preventive detention, but where there are no such provisions in that Article, the operation of Articles 19 and 21 cannot be excluded.

Now, in respect of the first proposition raised on behalf of the Petitioner, the contention of the learned Counsel is as Section 3 of the Act empowers detention of any person on subjective satisfaction of the concerned authority and not on any objective assessment of the truth of the allegations made against him, it is violative of Article 19(1)(d). It is stated that subjective satisfaction can be even on mere suspicion, that Article 22 does not provide for making a law of preventive detention on mere suspicion. It is further stated that as Section 3(2) empowers even certain officers to form subjective satisfaction, it is bad. The contention is that the section gives vast discretionary power not only to the Central and State Governments but also to the specified officers and that such power is liable to be abused. However, none of these contentions are acceptable.

As noted earlier, the general power of the Parliament to make law for preventive detention lies elsewhere in the Constitution and not under Article 22. This Article being in that part of the Constitution--which enshrines the fundamental rights of the citizen, Clauses (1) and (2) prescribe the rights of a person arrested and detained. But Clause 3 (b) is an exception and it makes Clauses (1) and (2) not applicable to persons arrested and detained under any law providing for preventive detention. This is really a curtailment of fundamental rights and that is why it is said that Articles 19 and 21 must be read subject to Article 22 in the same way as the said Article must be read subject to Articles 19 and 21. Then comes Clause (4) which restricts the power of the Parliament (as well as the State Legislature) in making law for preventive detention, for it says that such law of preventive detention shall not authorise detention for a period longer than three months. However, Sub-clauses (a) and (b) of Clause (4) are exceptions under which the three months period can be exceeded provided the law satisfies either of those sub-clauses, Sub-clause (b) of Clause (4) being read with Clauses (7) (a) and (b). In spite of the above restriction there is ample latitude to the Parliament to enact a law for preventive detention and if the Parliament makes use of that latitude unreasonably. Article 19(5) can be invoked and the Court would have to see whether the law has transgressed the limits of reasonableness. But it cannot be said that the Act offends Article 19(1) (d) and not saved by Article 19(5) merely because it authorises preventive detention on the subjective satisfaction of the authority without any objective assessment of the grounds of detention. Nor can it be said that as the Act gives extraordinary powers to the authority, the same might be misused and therefore it is discriminatory.

In A.K. Gopalan Vs. The State of Madras, , Section 3 of Act IV of 1950 which is similar to Section 3 in the present Act was attacked as is being done now. There also the contention was that as the section does not provide an objective standard for determining whether the requirement of law have been complied with and detention can be made merely on the subjective satisfaction of the authority. it is bad. This contention was rejected by the Court and that part of the decision has not been dissented from the subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court. Regarding this aspect, Mahajan J., as he then was observed at page 84:

This criticism of the learned Counsel, in my opinion, is not valid. It is no doubt true that a detention order depends on the satisfaction of the Government but this provisions is in accordance with Article 22 of the Constitution which to my mind contemplates detention on the satisfaction of the executive authority. By its very nature the subject is such that it implies detention on the judgment of the authority entrusted with the making of the order. The whole intent and purpose of the law of preventive detention would be defeated if satisfaction of the authority concerned was subject to conditions as to legal proof and procedure.

Fazal Ali J., dealing with this question observed at page 66 thus:

I will now proceed to deal with the Act in the light of the conclusions I have arrived at. So far as Section 3 of the Act is concerned, it was contended that it is most unreasonable, because it throws a citizen at the mercy of certain authorities, who may at their will order his detention and into whose minds we cannot probe to see whether there is any foundation for the subjective satisfaction upon which their action is to rest. I am however unable to accept this argument. The administrative authorities who have to discharge their responsibilities have to come to quick decisions and must necessarily be left to act on their own judgment. This principle is by no means unreasonable and it underlies all the preventive or quasi-administrative measures which are to be found in the Code of Criminal Procedure.... Therefore I do not find anything wrong or unconstitutional in Section 3 of the Act

It must be remembered that the learned Judge has tested Section 3 of Act IV of 1950 not on the principle that Article 22 is a complete Code in itself, but having in mind that if the Parliament makes use of the latitude given to it under Article 22 unreasonably, then Article 19(5) may enable the Court to see whether it has transgressed the limits of reasonableness.

The learned Judge took the view that Section 3 of the earlier Act was a reasonable provision only for the first step, namely for arrest and initial detention and it must be followed by some procedure for testing the so-called subjective satisfaction, which can be done only by providing a suitable machinery for examining the grounds on which the order of detention is made. The view of the learned Judge appears to be that even if the law provides for preventive detention only for a period of three months there should be some machinery to test the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority, but this view has not been shared by the other Judges who decided the case and there is nothing in the subsequent pronouncements of the Supreme Court to support the above view. In the light of Sub-clause (a) of Clause (4) of Article 22 which speaks of intercession by an Advisory Board if the detention is to be for a period longer than three months, it is implied that if the detention is only for a period of three months or less, no such intercession is necessary. This aspect need not be pursued further because the learned Counsel did not contend that Section 3 of the Act is bad on the score that it has not provided for any machinery for testing the subjective satisfaction of the authority concerned even if the detention is not for a period longer than three months.

It is clear from the observations Mahajan J., as he then was and Fazal Ali J., in A.K. Gopalan Vs. The State of Madras, extracted above, that Article 22 permits law for preventive detention on the subjective satisfaction of the authorities concerned. There is no substance in the contention of the learned Counsel that the power given to the authority, namely the Central and the State Governments as well as the officials specified in Sub-section (2) of Section 3, is likely to be misused and therefore the provision becomes discriminatory. In Matajog Dobey Vs. H.C. Bhari, it has been pointed out that discretionary power is not necessarily a discriminatory power and that abuse of power is not to be easily assumed where the discretion is vested in the Government and not in a minor official. In The Collector of Customs, Madras Vs. Nathella Sampathu Chetty and Another, it is pointed out that the possibility of abuse of a statute otherwise valid does not impart to it any element of invalidity. In Providence Bank v. Alabous Bullings (1830) 7 L.ed. 939, 967, Marshel CJ., observed that a power may be capable of being abused but the constitution is not intended to furnish a corrective for every abuse of power which may be committed by the Government. In the His Holiness Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalvaru Vs. State of Kerala, Chandrachlu J., at pace 2042 (para 2102) after referring to the above observations of Marshal C.J., with approval stated that the powers of preventive detention are capable of the widest abuse and yet the Founding Fathers did confer those powers on Parliament. As observed by the Supreme Court in Sambhu Nath Sarkar Vs. The State of West Bengal and Others, at page 1436, there can be no doubt whatsoever that the Constitution makers accepted preventive detention as a necessary evil, to be tolerated in a constitutional scheme which, otherwise, guaranteed personal liberty in its well-accepted form. Preventive detention by its very nature has to be on the satisfaction of the executive authority. The officials enumerated in Sub-section (2) of Section 3 are not petty or minor officials and there is no warrant for the assumption that either the Government or the said officials, as the case may be, would abuse the power.

Learned Counsel assumes that u/s 3 an order of detention can be made even on mere suspicion. There is no warrant for such an assumption. The scheme of the Act provides for serving the grounds of detention on the person detained, as soon as may be. and that means an order of detection can be made only if there are grounds for such detention. Mere suspicion would not enable either the Government or the officers specified in Sub-section (3) of Section 3 to make an order of detention. It has been held in a number of cases that if the grounds stated in the order of detention are vague or irrelevant or wholly baseless then the order cannot be sustained. There-tore, there is no scope u/s 3 for the concerned authority to pass an order of detention in respect of a particular person on mere suspicion.

Under all these circumstances, the attack on Section 3 of the Act fails.

It would be convenient to dispose of the contention in respect of Section 13 of the Act (under proposition No. 5) at this stage. The contention is that though in the said section, the maximum period of detention is prescribed as one year, such maximum is not with reference to the " class or classes of cases " as contemplated under Clause (7) (b) of Article 22, and therefore it is bad. This contention is also not correct. The question of " class or classes of cases" would come in only with regard to a provision to which Clause (7) (a) applies. It is under Clause (7) (a), Parliament is given special power to make a law prescribing the circumstances under which and the class or classes of cases in which a person may be detained for a period longer than three months without obtaining the opinion of an Advisory Board, As already seen, Sub-clauses (a) and (b) of Clause (4) of Article 22 are in the nature of exceptions to the general restriction contained in that clause, namely that no law providing for preventive detention shall authorise the detention of a person for a longer period than three months. Under Sub-clause (a), if there is intercession of an Advisory Board, the period of three months can be exceeded. Then again under Sub-clause (b), it is provided that a person can be detained beyond the period of three months even without the intercession of an Advisory Board if he is so detained in accordance with the provisions of any law made by the Parliament under Sub-clause (a) and (b) of Clause (7). Thus it is seen that only if Clause 4 (b) is invoked Sub-clauses (a) and (b) of Clause (7) would be applicable. In the proviso to Sub-clause (a) of Clause (4), it is stated that nothing in the said sub-clause shall authorise the detention of any person beyond the maximum period prescribed by any law made by the Parliament under Sub-clause (b) of Clause (7). This has reference only to the maximum period prescribed and not regarding any " class or classes of cases " as contemplated under Sub-clause (a) and (b) of Clause (7). As said earlier, as far as Clause 4 (a) is concerned, the question of classification of cases does not arise.

The contention that Sections 8 and 11 are violative of Article 22(5) (proposition Nos. 2 and 3) is also not sound. The contention as far as Section 8 in concerned is that though the section provides for earliest opportunity to be given for making representation, there is no provision compelling the authority to consider such representation and therefore it offends Article 22(5). The contention proceeds on an erroneous assumption. It is not correct to say that Section 8 does not make it obligatory on the part of the authority to consider the representation made by the person detained. In Article 22(5) itself, if is only stated that the authority making the order of detention shall as soon as may be, communicate to such person the grounds on which the order has been made and shall afford him the earliest opportunity of making a representation against the order. There are no specific words in this clause of Article 22 saying that such representations shall be considered by the detaining authority, but if the Constitution enjoins upon the detaining authority to communicate the grounds on which the order of detention is made, and also to afford the earliest opportunity of making representation against the order of detention, it is implied that such representation must be considered by the authority concerned. Section 8 of the Act is in accordance with Sub-clause (5) of Article 22. If the contention of the learned Counsel that u/s 8 of the Act there is no obligation on the part of the detaining authority to consider the representation of the person detained is right, then the very same reasoning would apply to Clause (5) of the Article 22 as well. Neither in Section 8 nor in Clause (5) of Article 22 there are specific words saying that the detaining authority shall consider the representation made by the person detained. But as said earlier, such an obligation is implied because the Article in the Constitution as well as Section 8 of the Act speak of earliest opportunity to the detenue of making a representation against the order of detention. If the representation need not be considered, then the provision would become nugatory.

Pankaj Kumar Chakrabarty and Others Vs. The State of West Bengal, is a case arising under Act IV of 1950. Section 7 of the Act corresponds to Section 8 of the present Act. The Constitutional validity of Section 7 of that Act was, no doubt, not canvessed in that decision, but the question was whether even where an Advisory Board is constituted, the representation made by the detenue has to be considered by the Government or not. In dealing with that question, at page 100, the Supreme Court observed:

The illustrations given in Sk. Abdul Karim and Others Vs. State of West Bengal, show that Clause (5) of Article 22 not only contains the obligation of the appropriate Government to furnish the grounds and to give the earliest opportunity to make a representation but also by necessary implication the obligation to consider that representation. Such an obligation is evidently provided for to give an opportunity to the detenue to show and a corresponding opportunity to the appropriate Government to consider any objections against the order which the detenu may raise so that no person is, through error or otherwise, wrongly arrested and detained.

At page 101 (para 11), the Supreme Court proceeds to say:

This conclusion in strengthened by the other provisions of the Act. In conformity with Clauses (4) and (5) of Article 22, Section 7 of the Act enjoins upon the detaining authority to furnish to the detenu grounds of detention within five days from the date of his detention and to afford to the detenue the earliest opportunity to make his representation to the appropriate Government.... If the representation was for the consideration not by the Government but by the Board only as contended, there was no necessity to provide that it should be addresesd to the Government and not directly to the Board.... The peremptory language in Clause (5) of Article 22 and Section 7 of the Act would not have been necessary if the Board and not the Government had to consider the representation.

As soon earlier, Section 7 of Act IV of 1950 corresponds to Section 8 of the present Act and therefore it is incorrect to assume that u/s 8. (here is no obligation on the part of the Government to consider the representation made by the person detained.

The learned Counsel also contended on the strength of the observation of Mahajan, J. (as he then was), in A.K. Gopalan Vs. The State of Madras, at page 82 that representation u/s 8 is to be to the Government which is the detaining authority and such a provision is bad as the prosecutor himself cannot be a judge. At page 82 the learned observed:

In my view, the right cannot be defeated or made elusive by presuming that the detaining authority itself will consider the representation with an unbiassed mind and will render justice. That would be in a way make the prosecutor a Judge in the case and such a procedure is repugnant to all notions of justice.

This view of the learned Judge has not been shared by the other Judges who decided that case and the majority view in this point has not been dissented from in the subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court. Clause 5 of Article 22 cannot be said to contemplate representation being considered by any other body other than the authority making the order of detention. The clause specifically says that the authority making the order shall afford the detenu earliest opportunity of making a representation against order. That means the representation has to be made to the authority making the order and as soon earlier that implied an obligation on the part of the authority to consider such representation.

18 There is no substance in the contention that Section 11 is violative of Article 22(5) either. Sections 10 to 12 of the Act deal with reference of a case to Advisory Board, the procedure to be followed by the Advisory Board and the action to be taken upon the report of the Advisory Board. The contention of the learned Counsel in this regard is twofold. One is that the Advisory Board considers all the materials placed before it and is also entitled to call for such further information as it may deem necessary from the appropriate Government, etc., and this is violative of Article 22(5). The second aspect is that the detenue is not furnished with copies of reports contemplated u/s 3(3) of the Act or other materials placed before the Advisory Board and further information gathered by it and that therefore Article 22(5) is violated. It must be remembered that Article 22(5) contemplates communicating to the person detained only the grounds on which the order of detention has been made. It does not contemplate furnishing of any other particulars except the grounds. Though it has been held in a number of cases they should be intelligible so as to enable a detenu to make an effective representation, as pointed out in The State of Bombay Vs. Atma Ram Sridhar Vaidya, at page 178 that grounds should not be vague and that by their very nature the grounds are conclusions by way of facts and not a complete detailed recital of all the facts. Therefore, as long as the grounds are communicated, the requirements of Clause (5) of Article 22 are satisfied. There is no warrant to assume that the Advisory Board would take into consideration irrelevant materials, the members constituting the Board being persons of high judicial qualification. Therefore, the contention that Section 11 of the Act is violative of Article 22(5) fails.

So is the case regarding Section 12. The contention is that the said section violates, natural justice in that the copy of the Advisory Board''s report sent to the Government upon which the Government may confirm the detention order is not furnished to the detenu. It is also stated the because the Advisory Board does not hear the detenu in person, there is failure of natural justice. However, it has not been substantiated how the failure to furnish a copy of the Advisory Board''s report or the fact that the detenu has no right to make a personal representation to the Advisory Board would amount to failure of natural justice.

Thus all the contentious of the learned Counsel in attacking the constitutional validity of some of the provisions of the Act fail.

There remains the question whether, the grounds of order of detention are vague and irrelevant resulting in the denial of an opportunity to the detenu to make an effective representation against the detention. As already seen two grounds are mentioned in the order of detention and the attack is only against ground No. 2 which is really relating to an event earlier in point of time. The purport of this ground, as already seen, is that at 3 a.m. on 3rd July 1973, lorry bearing Registration No. 8553 loaded with 100 bags of rice was intercepted at Thavalam road junction on the Pollachi-Palghat road, thereby preventing smuggling of rice from this State to Kerala and that investigation revealed that the said rice bags had been loaded in the lorry from the detenu''s godown at Pollachi. This ground is said to be vague on the score that there is no mention as to the date on which the lorry was loaded at the detenu''s godown at Pollachi. Learned Counsel referred to the following cases in this connection in which the grounds of detention were held to be vague and therefore, the order of detention is bad inasmuch as the detenu failed to geuan opportunity to make an effective representation against the order of detention. They are: Rameshwar Lal Patwari Vs. State of Bihar, Motilal Jain Vs. State of Bihar and Others, Mishrilal Jain v. The District Magistrate, Kamrue and Ors. (1971) 2 S.C. W.R. 601 Chaju Ram Vs. The State of Jammu and Kashmir, Kishori Mohan Bera Vs. The State of West Bengal, and Mintu Bhakta Vs. The State of West Bengal, . In the last of the cases, the order of detention was held bad not on the score that the ground was vague but the same was factually baseless. We are not concerned with such a case here. In the other cases referred above, on the facts of those cases, the grounds of detention were found to be vague, but apply the standard regarding the question whether a particularly ground is vague or not, applied in those cases it is not possible to hold that the ground in question in the present case is vague.

As pointed out by the Supreme Court in Pushkar Mukherjee and Others Vs. The State of West Bengal, , vague can be considered as an antonym of ''definite''. It is pointed out there that if the ground supplied is incapable of being understood and denned with sufficient certainty, it can be called vague. In the present case, the only complaint is that the date on which the lorry is said to have been loaded with rice bags at the detenu''s godown at Pollachi has not been mentioned in the grounds. Whether that fact makes the ground vague is the question. On behalf of the State, the learned Public Prosecutor contended that considering the proximity of the place where the lorry was detained and the hour at which it was so detained, though it is not specifically stated in the ground, one can understand the allegation to mean that the lorry was loaded at the detenu''s godown on the very night in which the lorry was detained. Whether this contention is right or not it is not possible to hold that the ground is vague merely because the date on which the lorry was said to have been loaded at the detenu''s godown is not mentioned.

In Rameshwar Lal Patwari Vs. State of Bihar, , one ground stated that the detenu always took the trucks to wicked routes to Saithia (West Bengal) and the detenu himself piloted them. Another ground stated that a businessman of Barahiya disclosed that the detenu visited Barahiya on several occassions and purchased gram, gramdal under various names and smuggled them to West Bengal. The order of detention was struck down on the score that the abovesaid two grounds were vague apart from the fact that there was another ground in the detention order which was factually baseless. In Motilal Jain Vs. State of Bihar and Others, in one of the grounds, the name of the person to whom the detenu was alleged to have sold goods in the black market was not mentioned and in another ground the person to whom the goods were alleged to have been sold was non-existent. The price of goods at which they have been sold had not been controlled by the Government. It was under such circumstances, the grounds were held to be vague and irrelevant. In Mishrilal Jain v. The District Magistrate. Kanpur and Ors. (1971) 2 S.C.W.R. 601, the ground was that the detenu availed himself on the opportunity of the acute scarcity of salt in Gauhati for profiteering in that commodity by resorting to hoarding. Another ground was that the detenue wilfully organised profiteering by secretly selling this essential commodity at exhorbitant rates at Gauhati by creating an artificial scarcity even after fixation of the price by the Deputy Commissioner. The grounds were held to be vague as the accusation that the detenu was selling salt at exhorbitant rates does not convey any definite idea as to the price at which he was selling the article and that the idea of exhorbitant rate is only a relative one. There was also no mention in ground about the time, place or the person to whom the sales were effected. In Kishori Mohan Bera Vs. The State of West Bengal, , the ground was that the detenuo was acting in a manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order or security of the State, which showed that the detaining authority himself was not certain whether no activities of the detenu endangered public order or security of the State. In Chaju Ram Vs. The State of Jammu and Kashmir, , the ground of detention was that the detenu conspired with some leaders of Democratic Conference and incited landless people of Espura Tehsail to forcibly occupy the land comprised in Nandpur Mechanised Farm and to resist violently any attempt to evict them. No details of the leaders of the conference or of the persons incited or the dates on which he conspired or incited the squatters or the time when such conference took place were mentioned. It was under those circumstance it was held that the grounds were vague and that it was impossible for the detenu to make an effective representation.

None of these cases would apply on facts to the present case. The ground which is attacked as vague definitely states the time at which the lorry loaded with 100 bags of rice was intercepted and further says that the same had been loaded at the godown of the detenu at Poilachi which place is not far away from the place at which the lorry was intercepted. The ground cannot be said to be vague.

The result is, the petition fails and the same is dismissed. The dismissal of the petition would not stand in the way of petition to the Government and the Government acting under the proviso to Section 13 of the Act.