Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J.:- The petitioner undergoing inhibitive incarceration in West Bengal, seeks this Court s writ to be liberated on grounds of substantive innocence and processual injustice. Judicial vigilance is the price of liberty and freedom of the person is a founding faith of our Republic. So it behoves us to examine the legal circumstances of the detention in the light of the constitutional constraints under Article 22 and the procedural safeguards of the Act (the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971).

2. A brief calendar bearing on the landmark events, giving the core facts relevant to the legality of the detention, is necessary right at the beginning. The order of the District Magistrate, Bardwan, which cast the petitioner into jail recited that he was satisfied that with a view to preventing the petitioner from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and sercvices essential to the community the direction for detention under Section 3 of the Act was being made, impeccably adhering to the mantra of the law. The grounds which induced the authority s satisfaction were concomitantly furnished as required by Section 6 (1), read with Section 3 (2), of the Act. "You are being detained" runs the communication.

"................ On the grounds that you have been acting in a manner prejudicial to the suplies and services essential to the supplies and services essential to the community as evidenced by the particulars given below".

Three specific instances were set out of November 21, 1971, November 24, 1971 and January 13, 1972 - all over seven months prior to the detention order - alleging that the petitioner and his associates (not named) broke open wagons and looted wheat and tea. There is also a statement that "the said activity of yours thus attracts Section 3 (1) (a) (iii) of the .............. Act."

3. It is a trifle mystifying that the detention order is passed many months after the three criminal break-ins, and equally strange it is that the prisoner is arrested only on February 22, 1973, many months after the order of detention was passed, there being no justification of abscondence. Long before the grounds of detention were served on the detenu (February 22, 1973) the State Government had approved the District Magistrate s order which it did on September 2, 1972. Shortly thereafter, the State Government placed the case of the detenu before the Advisory Board under Section 10 of the Act, although the actual detention was effected only in 1973. The affidavit-in-opposition by the Deputy Secretary to Government does not explain these time logs between the prejudicial acts and the preventive detention order, and between the order and the detention. The petitioner s averment in this context becomes disturbingly meaningful, for, according to him, the instances were false and when he was prosecuted in Court, the cases ended in his favour. He has stated in his representation to the Advisory Board that

"Over the grounds Nos. 1, 2 and 3 Burdwan P. S. Case No. C. R. P. S. No. 10(11)71, 9 (11)71, and 6(1) 72 was started. The petitioner was arrested in connection with aforesaid case. But as the charges are false, so no prima facie case was established against the petitioner and was discharged by the learned S. D. J. M., Burdwan. But soon as the petitioner was discharged from the case, the petitioner was again arrested and arbitrarily detained under M. I. S. Act."

4. We will consider these aspects in a little detail later. Suffice it to say that the Advisory Board considered the representation of the detenu and the material placed before it by the State, and concluded on April 28, 1973 that there was sufficient cause for the detention of the petitioner. Thereafter, by order dated May 7, 1973, the State government continued the detention "until the expiration of twelve months from the date of his detention or until the expiry of D. I. Act, 1971, whichever is later."

5. Both the State Government a