Judgment

CHANDRACHUD, J. :- This appeal by special leave is directed against the judgment dated August 11, 1971, of the High Court at Bombay, dismissing the petition filed by the appellant under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution to challenge an order of externment passed by the 1st respondent.

2. On October 9, 1969, a notice of even date was served on the appellant under Section 59 of the Bombay Police Act, 22 of 1951, asking him to appear before the Assistant Commissioner of Police, M Division, Bombay, in answer to the allegations contained in the notice. Briefly, the allegations were that the appellant s acts and movements were causing harm, alarm and danger to the residents of certain localities within the jurisdiction of Vile Parle Police Station, that he was given to assaulting the residents of those localities either because they were suspected to be police informants or because they failed to accede to the demands of money, that he had committed robberies in the particular localities, that since March 1969, he had committed several acts of the above description and that witnesses were not willing to come forward to depose against him in public. The appellant appeared before the Assistant Commissioner of Police, offered his explanation and examined 16 witnesses to refute the allegations. He contended that the allegations were vague and general, that they were made at the instance of one Damayanti Deshpande who was inimical to him, that he was a social worker of some standing, that he was a member of the Congress Party and that in two criminal cases which were filed against him he was acquitted in spite of the evidence led by the prosecution.

3. Later, the appellant was heard by Shri G. M. Nadkarni, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone-IV, Greater Bombay. On a consideration of the explanation and the evidence tendered by the appellant, the Dy. Commissioner passed an order dated July 23, 1970, under Section 59 of the Act, externing him from the limits of Greater Bombay and the District of Thana, for a period of two years. The order of externment was directed to take effect within two days of the decision of two criminal cases which were then pending against the appellant and in case he was sentenced in the aforesaid cases to a term of imprisonment, the order was to take effect within two days from the date of his release from jail. Against that order, the appellant filed an appeal under Section 60 of the Act, to the 2nd respondent, the Government of Maharashtra, but that appeal was dismissed on May 20, 1971, save with the modification that the externment was to be effective from May 31, 1971.

4. The appellant then filed a petition in the Bombay High Court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution to challenge the order of externment. Two contentions were made in the High Court on behalf of the appellant; one, that the allegations contained in the show-cause notice were too vague to afford him a reasonable opportunity to defend himself and two, that his activities were at best confined to specific localities within the jurisdiction of the Vile Parle Police Station and therefore the order asking him to remove himself from the limits of the Districts of Greater Bombay and Thana was excessive and unreasonable. On the first contention, reliance was placed by the appellant on the judgment D/- 29-4-1971 of a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court in Criminal Appln. No. 332 of 1971, in which a similar notice was struck down on the ground of vagueness. The learned Judges declined to follow that judgment as, in their opinion, it was inconsistent with the view taken by this Court in State of Gujarat v. Mehboob Khan Usman Khan, (1968) 3 SCR 746. On the second contention, distinguishing the judgment of a Divison Bench of the High Court in Balu Shivling Dombe v. The Divisional Magistrate, Pandharpur, 71 Bom LR 79 and following a judgment D/- 17-3-1968 of another Division Bench in Criminal Appln. No. 1427 of 1968, the learned J