Case: Puranlal Lakhanpal Vs. Union of India

1. This is an appeal by special leave, and the appellant is Puran Lal Lakhanpal. On July 21, 1956, the Government of India in the Ministry of Home Affairs passed an order of preventive detention against the appellant in which it was stated, inter alia, that with a view to preventing the appellant from acting in a manner prejudicial to the security of India and the relations of India with foreign powers, it was necessary to make an order against the appellant. The order thentherefore, in exercise of the powers vested in the Central Government by Cl. (a) (i) of sub-s. (1) of S. 3 ofthe Preventive Detention Act, 1950 (Act No. 4 of 1950) as amended, the Central Government hereby orders that the said Shri Puran Lal Lakhanpal, son of Shri Diwan Chand Sharma, be detained.The appellant was arrested and taken in custody on the same date. On July 24, 1956, the grounds of detention were communicated to the appellant under S. 7 of the Preventive Detention Act No. 4 of 1950, hereinafter referred to as the Act. The case of the appellant was then sent to an Advisory Board constituted under S. 8 of the Act, and the Advisory Board having reported that there was, in its opinion, sufficient cause for detention of the appellant, the Central Government confirmed the order of detention on August 20, 1956, and stated further that the appellant "shall continue in detention for a period of twelve months from the date of his detention." This order was passed under sub-s. (1) of S. 11 of the Act.Before that date, however, the appellant moved the Punjab High Court as also this Court challenging the legality of his detention and asked for the issue of a writ in the nature of a writ of haberas corpus. The petition to this Court was dismissed and as nothing turns upon that petition, no further reference need be made to it. In the petition to the Punjab High Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution, the appellant was permitted to urge an additional ground to the effect that sub-s. (1) of S. 11 of the Act was unconstitutional inasmuch as it offended against Art. 22 (4) (a) of the constitution. This constitutional point was referred to and decided by a Division Bench of the Punjab High Court by an order dated September 24, 1956. The High Court held that sub-s. (1) of S. 11 of the Act was neither repugnant to nor inconsistent with the provisions of Art. 22 (4) of the Constitution. A single Judge of the High Court then dealt with the petition of the appellant on merits and dismissed it by an order D/- 26-9-1956. The appellant moved the Punjab High Court unsuccessfully for leave to appeal to this Court. He then moved this Court, and obtained special leave to appeal from the aforesaid orders of the Punjab High Court dated September 24, and September 26, 1956, respectively.

Reasoning:
The Constitution has therefore in one case given discretion to the Executive not to furnish facts in certain circumstances and in the other case left it to Parliament to prescribe cases or classes of cases in which reference to the Board need not be made. Therefore, both the furnishing of grounds and the report of the Board are, in a sense, limited safeguards. Considering the circumstance that the detention is of a preventive nature, the Executive has necessarily to consider whether a person should be detained and the period for which he should be detained. It could not have been the intention to give the power of determining the necessity of detention of a particular person to the Executive, and leave to another authority - the Board in this case - to say whether the detention should be for three months or more.In the very nature of things the decision as to the period of detention must be of the detaining authority, because, it is the authority upon which responsibility for detention has been placed. The reference to the Board is only a safeguard against Executive vagaries and highhanded action and is a machinery devised by the Constitution to review the decision of the Executive on the basis of a representation made by the detenu, the grounds of detention, and where the order is by an officer, the report of such officer. It is not a limitation on the Executives discretion as to the discharge of its duties connected with preventive detention; it is a safeguard against misuse ofthe ground no doubt relates to what happened on February 18, 1956; that does not, however, mean that the detention of the appellant is punitive in character. What the appellant is likely to do in future must, to a large extent be inferred from his past conduct. Secondly, we think that the ground has a rational connection with the objects which the appellant has to be prevented from attaining.The objects of the appellants detention are to prevent him from acting in a manner prejudicial to (1) the security of India and (2) her relations with foreign powers. Both these objects, we think, come within the ground in question.Thirdly, the verbal inaccuracies relied on by the appellant are all so inconsequential in nature that we do not think it necessary to state them inare unable to accept this contention. We agree with the learned Judge of the High Court that the activities of the appellant and the events of 1954 to 1956 referred to by the appellant, do not in any way show that the order of detention made against the appellant was made for any ulterior purpose or for purposes other than those mentioned in the detention order.On the question of mala fides, it is not a relevant consideration whether the activities of the appellant were liked or disliked by the authorities concerned. The only relevant consideration is if the order of detention was made for ulterior purposes or purposes other than those mentioned in the detention order.On the materials placed before us, we unhesitatingly hold that no mala fides have beenis also true that preventive detention for a period longer than three months is nonetheless preventive detention and is not another kinds of detention. At the same time preventive detention for a period longer than three months is not the same thing as preventive detention for a shorter period. It is quite conceivable that with regard to different periods of detention permissible under a law relating to preventive detention different provisions may be made. Preventive detention certainly interferes with a persons liberty. It is an inroad on his freedom. It may; be that the makers of the Constitution having given the legislatures power to enact laws providing for preventive detention interfering with a persons liberty did not think it fit to provide any limitation on such power when such detention was to be for a relatively shorter period but thought it fit to restrict the power in the case of detention for what they conceived to be a long period. If such was the intention, then the makers of the Constitution would obviously make a distinction between preventive detention for a shorter period and preventive detention for a longer period. To say that there is no distinction between these kinds of preventive detention is to assume that the makers of the Constitution never intended to make the distinction. For such an assumption I find no justification. Indeed, what I have read from the judgment of this Court in Gopalans case (A), would show that the distinction between preventive detention simpliciter and preventive detention for a period longer than three months was in the mind of the makers of the Constitution, for it is there said that no reference to the Advisory Board is contemplated by the Constitution excepting in a case of detention for a period longer than threeargument, of course, assumes that the words "such detention" mean detention for a period longer than three months. It assumes that the article requires that where the law of preventive detention authorises a detention for a longer period it is necessary to obtain the opinion of the Advisory Board that there is sufficient cause for detention for such period. Now there is nothing in the article to prevent an Act authorising preventive detention providing for the opinion of the Advisory Board being obtained as to there being sufficient cause for the detention in any case of detention Such a provision in a law of preventive detention would be perfectly legal. The present Act in fact contains such a provision. Therefore, it cannot be said that whenever a law provides for an opinion of the Advisory Board being obtained as to the sufficiency of the cause for detention, the opinion in view of Art. 22 (4) (a) necessarily is as to the sufficiency of the cause of detention for a period longer than three months. Besides, if, as the present argument assumes, it is obligatory in a law authorising preventive detention for a period longer than three months to provide for a report of the Advisory Board stating expressly its opinion as to the sufficiency of the cause for the detention for the period mentioned, I am unable to appreciate that such an obligation is satisfied by not making the required provision but by showing that by necessary implication the required opinion is deemed to have been given, even though in fact it may not have been given. The question is not what the report is to be deemed to have stated nor even what it has in fact stated, but what the statute should provide. If the statute has not made the obligatory provision it must be held to be bad. It would be a strange argument to say that it must be good because though it did not contain the required provision it must in view of the Constitution be deemed to contain it.36. It was then said that as it is not for the Advisory Board to decide the period of detention to be ordered there can be no point in providing that its opinion, whether there were sufficient cause for detention for a period longer than three months or not, should be obtained. It seems to me that whether there is any point in obtaining such opinion or not it is wholly irrelevant to enquire. If the language of the Constitution requires such opinion to be obtained, it has to be obtained. I have stated that the language indubitably requires such opinion to be obtained,. The language cannot have a different meaning because, otherwise, the provision would be without any point at all. Furthermore, I am unable to see why if the Government fixes the period of detention, it is unnecessary where the period is to exceed three months, to provide for the opinion of an independent body being obtained as to whether there is sufficient cause for detention for that period. In my view it is eminently reasonable to make such a provision. When a persons liberty is to be curtailed for a longer period, a safeguard may be considered necessary which it may not be when the curtailment contemplated is for a comparatively shorter period. I will repeat that the reasonableness of such a provision is implicit in what I have read from the judgment in 1950 SCR 88 : (AIR 1950 SC 27 ) (A). It is said there that it is only in the case of detention for a period longer than three months that the Constitution requires a provision that the Advisory Boards opinion should be obtained