Case: Salim Vs. State Of West Bengal

1. The petitioner, Sk. Salim, challenges by this petition under Article 32 of the Constitution an order of detention passed by the District Magistrate, 24 Parganas, under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971. The order was passed on June 13, 1972 avowedly with a view to preventing the petitioner from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community. The particulars furnished to the petitioner refer to two incidents of theft dated January 31 and February 23, 1972. The former relates to a theft of underground copper cables and the latter to a theft of A. C. S. R. Conductors. The particulars further mention that on February 24, 1972 the petitioner and two of his named associates were found in possession of 30 K. Gs. of stolen A. C. S. R. Conductors.2. Section 3 (1) of the Act empowers the Central Government and the State Government to pass orders of detention for the reasons therein mentioned. Section 3 (2) confers power on District Magistrates, specially empowered Additional District Magistrates and Commissioners of Police to pass orders of detention for reasons specified therein. If an order of detention is passed by any of these officers,"he shall forthwith report the fact to the State Government to which he is subordinate together with the grounds on which the order has been made and such other particulars as in his opinion have a bearing on the matter, and no such order shall remain in force for more than twelve days after the making thereof unless in the meantime it has been approved by the State Government :"That is the clear mandate of S. 3 (3).3. The District Magistrate, in the instant case, made the detention order on June 13, 1972 and on the 15th he reported the fact of making the order to the State Government.

Reasoning:
It is an established rule of construction that unless the language of the statute is ambiguous, the words used by the legislature ought to be given their plain, literal meaning. But it is equally important that by no rule of construction may the words of a statute be so interpreted as to bring about absurd situations in practice. The stranglehold of stark literalness has therefore to be avoided in order to give a rational meaning and content to the language used in the statute. Thus, though the word forthwith cannot be construed so as to permit indolence or laxity on the part-of the officer charged with the duty of reporting the detention to the State Government, reasonable allowance has to be made for unavoidable delays, always remembering that the detaining authority must explain any long delay by pointing out circumstances due to which the report to the State Government could not be made with the greatest promptitude.Thus, forthwith does not connote a precise time and even if the statute under consideration requires that the report shall be made forthwith, its terms shall have been complied with if the report is made without avoidable or unreasonable delay.The District Magistrate, it must be stated, has not explained in his affidavit why he did not report the fact of detention to the State Government promptly. The order is dated June 13 and if not on the 15th itself, he should have in normal circumstances made his report on the 14th. Such remissness on the part of detaining authorities is not to be encouraged but it ought to be stated that counsel for the State Government had asked for an adjournment to enable the District Magistrate to file a supplementary affidavit for explaining the delay. We did not grant the adjournment, as we were inclined to the view that the interval between the date of the order and the date of the report is not so long as to require an explanation on oath. The date on which the order was passed may, even according to the petitioners counsel, be left out of the reckoning. That accounts for the 13th. The report was made on the 15th and there is some authority for the proposition that an act may be taken as done "at the first moment of the day on which it was performed"That takes care of the 15th. All that can therefore be said is that there was one days delay in making the report. We are not inclined to dismiss as untrue the oral explanation offered on behalf of the District Magistrate that he could not make the report on the 14th due to administrative difficulties. As it cannot be said that the District Magistrate had slept over the order or was "lounging supinely" over it and since the explanation of one days delay may be accepted as reasonable, there is no violation of the requirement that the report to the State Government shall be madedo not suppose that the length of time which a decision takes necessarily reflects the care or openness brought to bear upon it. The answer to yet another contention that the entire material which influenced the subjective satisfaction of the Magistrate in passing the order of detention was not supplied to the petitioner is that according to the counter-affidavit of the District Magistrate, nothing apart from what is stated in the grounds and the particulars was taken into account while passing the order oflast submission that the petitioner could have been prosecuted for the acts attributed to him has been answered by this Court in numerous cases by saying that the availability of an alternate remedy is not by itself an effective answer to the validity of the detention.