Judgment

PALEKAR, J.:- These are petitions for an order in the nature of habeas corpus filed by Debu Ghose, Aswini Kumar Das and Manick Chandra Roy who have been detained by orders of District Magistrates under the provisions of the West Bengal (Prevention of Violent Activities) Act, 1970 being President s Act No. 19 of 1970.

2. Section 3 (1) of that Act provides that the State Government may, if satisfied with respect to any person that with a view to preventing him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the security of the State or the maintenance of public order, it is necessary so to do, make an order directing that such person be detained. Sub-section (2) defines the expression "acting in any manner prejudicial to the security of the State or the maintenance of public order" for the purpose of sub-section (1) Sub-section (3) empowers certain authorities including the District Magistrate to pass orders under sub-section (1). When an order of detention is made by the District Magistrate, he is required by sub-section (4) to forthwith report the fact to the State Government together with the grounds on which the order has been made. Under sub-section (5) the State Government is required to report the fact of detention to the Central Government if the order is made by itself or approved by it when made by the District Magistrate. Under section 8 (1) when a person is detained in pursuance of a detention order, the authority making the order shall, as soon as may be, but not later than five days from the date of detention, communicate to him the grounds on which the order has been made, and shall afford him the earliest opportunity of making a representation against the order to the State Government. Under section 9 the State Government is required to constitute an Advisory Board and under S. 10 the State Government is required within 30 days from the date of detention to place before the Advisory Board the grounds on which the order has been made and the representation, if any, made by the person affected by the order and in case where the order has been made by an officer like a District Magistrate, also the report made by such officer under sub-section (4) of section 3. Under Section 11 the Advisory Board is required to submit its report to the State Government within ten weeks from the date of detention specifying in a separate part thereof the opinion of the Advisory Board as to whether or not there is sufficient cause for the detention of the person concerned. Under section 12 the State Government may confirm the detention order and continue the detention of the person concerned for such period as it thinks fit in all cases in which the Advisory Board has reported that there is, in its opinion, sufficient cause for the detention of the person. Section 13 provides that the maximum period for which any person may be detained in pursuance of any detention order which has been confirmed under section 12 shall be twelve months from the date of detention.

3. Mr. Sharma, who appeared on behalf of Manick Chandra Roy in Writ Petition No. 210 of 1971 and was good enough to argue as amicus curiae on behalf of the other two detenus, raised a common point challenging the legality of the continued detention. He pointed out that in all these three cases the confirmation order required to be made under section 12 had not been made by the State Government within three months of the date of detention and, therefore, the continued detention of the petitioners after three months of the date of detention was illegal. After some discussion however, Mr. Sharma did not press the point because admittedly the vires of the relevant provisions of the Act had not been challenged before us.

4. We will now deal with each of the petitioners separately.

Writ Petition No. 202 of 1971.

5. The petitioner Debu alias Deba Prasad Ghosh was detained by an order of the District Magistrate, Howrah, dated December 23, 1970. The order was as follows:

"Whereas I am sati