Case: Youssuf Abbas Vs. Union of India and Others

Ali Abbas Jafri was arrested on Sent 8, 1981, pursuant to an order of detention made on July 26, 1980 under the COFEPOSA. The grounds of detention along with the documents necessary to enable the detenu to make a representation were served on him on September 16, 1981. The detenu claims to have made a representation against his detention on October 1, 1981. He has made an assertion to this effect in para 11 of the writ petition filed in this Court. While this is not expressly denied in thefiled on behalf of the Government, it is stated therein that an undated representation was received by the Government from the District Magistrate, Unnao on 23rd October 1981. We will come back to this later. The Advisory Board which met on October 23, 1981, gave a personal hearing to the detenu and submitted its report on October 26, 1981. Thereafter the Government rejected the representation of the detenu on October 29, 1981. The representation, we may mention here, was admittedly not forwarded to the Advisory Board on the ground that it was received by the Government subsequent to the hearing by the Board2. The detenu filed a writ petition in the Allahabad High Court questioning the detention. The High Court upheld the detention and rejected the petition for the issue of the Writ of Habeas Corpus. The detenu has filed a petition for Special Leave to Appeal against the judgment of the Allahabad High Court under Art. 136 of the Constitution and has also filed a separate writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution

Court's reasoning:
We informed the learned counsel that he would be at liberty to produce the relevant records within a week from that date. Not withstanding the fact that four weeks have elapsed, the record have not been produced before us. When asked about it, the learned counsel told us hat though he had written to the Government of Uttar Pradesh that the records should be produced immediately, he has not received them so far. In the circumstances, we have no option, but to proceed on the basis that the respondents have no explanation to offer for the delay in considering the representation of the detenu.