Judgment

HIDAYATULLAH, C.J.I. : The petitioner Chaju Ram was detained under the orders of the District Magistrate, Jammu passed under Section 3 (2) read with Section 5 of the Jammu and Kashmir Preventive Detention Act, 1964 on March 30, 1969. The order was served on him the same day and on the original order, we find an endorsement by the Station House Officer to the effect that in compliance with the District Magistrate s order, he arrested Chaju at 6-30 p. m. and that the contents of the order were explained to him in Urdu by reading over the same to him in token of which his thumb impression was obtained on the face of the order. Beneath this endorsement, there is a thumb impression although it is not stated there whose thumb impression it is. In any event, this was in compliance with the direction given in the order itself that notice of the order should be given to Sh. Chaju by reading over the same to him

2. As required by Section 8 of the Act, grounds of the order of detention had to be disclosed to Chaju. It is claimed that this was done on April 6, 1969 and that order has been produced before us. The grounds stated as follows:

"1. That Shri Chaju s/o Gura in (sic) conspiracy with some other leaders of Democratic Conference incited landless people of RSpura Tehsil to forcibly occupy the land comprised in Nandpur Mechanised Farm, with the full knowledge that such action on their part was likely to lead to disturbances in a sensitive border area .

2. As a result of his activities some area of the Nandpur Farm was occupied by landless people between 18th March, 1968 to 25th February, 1969 who also constructed Jhugies on it. Chaju told them to persist in their illegal activities and urged them to resist violently any attempt to evict them. He told them the State Government would agree to allot this land to them only if a situation were created in which two or three persons were killed by Police firing.

3. Squatters were evicted on 26th March, 1968 some of whom offered resistance. Even after this, Chaju continued his campaign of asking people to forcibly occupy vacant Government land on a massive scale with the avowed objective of repeating a "Naxalbari" in our State".

We shall come to these grounds later. Chaju did not make a representation against his detention and on August 29, 1969, the Advisory Board held that the District Magistrate was fully justified and that there was sufficient cause for his detention.

3. Chaju made a petition under Article 32 of the Constitution for his release by a writ of Habeas Corpus in this Court. Rule nisi on this petition was issued on December 2, 1969. The petition was made from jail and contained not much material except to say that he had been illegally detained for one year and was languishing in jail. In reply to the rule nisi, an affidavit was filed by the Additional Secretary to the Government of Jammu and Kashmir Home Department. However, Chaju withdrew that petition with permission to file another petition and he has filed a second petition on January 20, 1970 In this petition he has stated in pares 3, 4 and 6 that he was given some papers five days after Baisakhi (which fell on April 13, 1969) and being an illiterate person, he could not read the contents of the papers given. He also alleged that he was not explained the grounds of his detention and therefore he was deprived of his right of making a representation under the statute.. He also alleged that the grounds on which his detention had been ordered were vague and were not sufficient for him to make a representation if he cared.

4. At the hearing we confined the case only to these two points, namely, whether Chaju was served the grounds of detention on April 6, 1969 as claimed in the reply affidavit and whether the contents of the grounds were explained to him in a language understood by him, and secondly whether the grounds were sufficiently precise and detailed for Chaju to make a proper representation as he was entitled to do