Judgement

WANCHOO, J. : These two writ petitions under Art. 32 of the Constitution for a writ of habeas corpus raise common questions and will be dealt with together. We may set out the facts in one of the petitions (namely Petitions 55) in order to highlight the points raised on behalf of the petitioners. It is unnecessary to refer to the facts in the other petition as they are similar except that in the other case the original arrest took place on December 6 instead of December 8.

2. Sahib Singh Dugal petitioner was employed in the Posts and Telegraphs Directorate of the Central Government. He was arrested on December 8, 1964 and put in jail as an undertrial prisoner for an offence under S. 3 of the Official Secrets Act. Various remands were taken upto March 11, 1965 in connection with the criminal case against the petitioner. It appears that besides Dugal, eight other persons were also involved in the case under S. 3 of the Official Secrets Act, including Jagdev Kumar Gupta petitioner in petition No. 56 of 1965. On March 11, 1965, the Deputy Superintendent of Police who was apparently in-charge of the investigation made a report to the court to the effect that all the nine persons involved in that criminal case might be discharged as sufficient evidence for their conviction could not be discovered during the investigation. Consequently, the Magistrate discharged all the nine persons including Sahib Singh Dugal and Jagdev Kumar Gupta petitioners and they were released from jail that very evening . Immediately after Sahib Singh Dugal came out of the jail, he was served with an order under R. 30(1) (b) of the Deference of India Rules (hereinafter referred to as the Rules). This order was passed by the Government of India and provided that Dugal be detained in order to prevent him from acting in a manner prejudicial to the Defence of India, public safety and India s relations with foreign powers. Dugal was then arrested and detained in the Central Jail. Tehar, New Delhi in accordance with the further order of the Government of India under R. 30(4) of the Rules.

3. The case of the petitioners before us is two-fold. In the first place they rely on the decision of this Court in Rameshwar Shaw v. District Magistrate, Burdwan. AIR 1964 SC 334, and their case is that in view of that decision the order of their detention and the service of that order are illegal and they are therefore entitled to release. In the second place, it is urged that the order of detention is mala fide in the circumstances of the case and therefore should be set aside. The Union contests the petitions and urges that Rameshwar Shaw s case. AIR 1964 SC 334, has no application to the present cases and that there was no mala fide intention in making the orders of detention.

4. We shall first consider whether the orders in the present cases are covered by the decision of this Court in Rameshwar Shaw s case, AIR 1964 SC 334, and should therefore be set aside. It is necessary in this connection to refer to the facts in that case. Rameshwar Shaw was ordered to be detained by an order passed on February 9, 1963. This order was served on him on February 15, 1963. At that time he was in Burdwan jail. He had been in that jail for sometime past in connection with a criminal complaint pending against him. Therefore, both when the order was passed and when it was served on Rameshwar Shaw, he was already in jail in connection with the criminal case pending against him and it was not known how long he would remain in jail in that connection. It was also impossible to say at that stage whether he would be convicted in the criminal case or acquitted. It may be mentioned that that was a case of detention under the Preventive Detention Act where grounds and particulars are supplied to the detenu. But the main question that was decided therein was that where a person was already in jail for an indefinite length of time in connection with a criminal case pending against him it would no