Unreasonable delay in date of proposal and passing of detention order renders it invalid: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has held that an unreasonable delay between the date of the proposal and passing of the order of detention, unless satisfactorily explained, throws a considerable doubt on the genuineness of the requisite subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority in passing the detention order.

Court has added that it thus consequently renders the detention order bad and invalid because the “live and proximate link” between the grounds of detention and the purpose of detention is snapped in arresting the detenu.

"The preventive detention is a serious invasion of personal liberty and the normal methods open to a person charged with commission of any offence to disprove the charge or to prove his innocence at the trial are not available to the person preventively 20 detained and, therefore, in prevention detention jurisprudence whatever little safeguards the Constitution and the enactments authorizing such detention provide assume utmost importance and must be strictly adhered to...", the Supreme Court has held.

These observations came to be made by a CJI UU Lalit bench of the Court while allowing an appeal of a detenu detained under Section 3(1) of the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1988.

The bench also comprising Justices Ravindra Bhat and JB Pardiwala added that the question as to whether the delay is unreasonable and stands unexplained depends on the facts and circumstances of each case.

In the present case, the circumstances indicated that the detaining authority after the receipt of the proposal from the sponsoring authority was indifferent in passing the order of detention with greater promptitude, Court said.

"The 'live and proximate link' between the grounds of detention and the purpose of detention stood snapped in arresting the detenu. More importantly the delay has not been explained in any manner & though this point of delay was specifically raised & argued before the High Court as evident from Para 14 of the impugned judgment yet the High Court has not recorded any finding on the same", the bench added.

Also, noting that in both the cases relied upon by the detaining authority for the purpose of preventively detaining the appellant, the appellant was already ordered to be released on bail by the concerned Special Court, Court said,

"Indisputably, we do not find any reference of this fact in the proposal forwarded by the Superintendent of Police, West Tripura District while requesting to process the order of detention. The reason for laying much stress on this aspect of the matter is the fact that the appellant though arrested in connection with the offence under the NDPS Act, 1985, the Special Court, Tripura thought fit to release the appellant on bail despite the rigours of Section 37 of the NDPS Act, 1985."

While relying on Section 37 under the NDPS Act, 1985, Court noted that an accused could be ordered to be released on bail only if the Court was satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accused is not guilty of such offence and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail. It further said,

"Had this fact been brought to the notice of the detaining authority, then it would have influenced the mind of the detaining authority one way or the other on the question whether or not to make an order of detention. The State never thought to even challenge the bail orders passed by the special court releasing the appellant on bail."

With this view, Court quashed the order of preventive detention passed by the State of Tripura.

Case Title: Sushanta Kumar Banik vs. State of Tripura & Ors.