Judgment

BHAGWATI, J.:- The District Magistrate, 24 Parganas, in exercise of the power conferred upon him under sub-section (1) read with sub-section (2) of S. 3 of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971, passed an order dated 28th August, 1972, directing that the petitioner be detained as it was necessary to do so with a view to preventing him from acting an any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community. Pursuant to the order of detention the petitioner was arrested on 30th August, 1972 and immediately on his arrest the grounds on which the order of detention was made were served on him by a communication dated 28th August, 1972, made under S. 8, sub-sec. (1) of the Act. There was only one ground set out in this communication and it was in the following terms :

"That on 11-8-1972 at about 14.05 hrs. you and your associates were removing three bales of empty gunny bags by breaking open wagon No. WR-386335 near Ghola Fatak North Cabin of Naihati Railway Yard. Being challenged by the local R. G. members you and your associates fled away leaving behind the stolen Gunny bags."

The State Government thereafter placed before the Advisory Board the ground on which the order of detention was made as also the representation sent by the petitioner against the order of detention and on receipt of the report of the Advisory Board that there was in its opinion sufficient cause for the detention of the petitioner the State Government passed an order dated 7th October, 1972 confirming the detention of the petitioner. The petitioner thereupon submitted from jail the present petition challenging the legality of his detention and praying for a writ of habeas corpus for setting him free.

2. The petitioner contended that there was only one ground communicated to him under Section 8 sub-section (1) as forming the basis of the order of detention and it was that on the night of 11th August, 1972 the petitioner with his associates was found removing from three bales of empty jute bags after breaking a railway wagon in Naihati railway yard and when challenged by the local Railway Protection Force the petitioner and his associates fled away leaving the body. This ground, said the petitioner, was a single solitary ground which could hardly sustain the inference that the petitioner was acting in a manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and services essential in the community and with a view to preventing him from so acting it was to detain him and the satisfaction of the District Magistrate in this behalf was no satisfaction at all and could not support the making of the order of detention. The respondent disputed the validity of this contention but realising that merely on the strength of the isolated act attributed to the petitioner in this ground, it was not possible to justify the satisfaction alleged to have been reached by the District Magistrate, the respondent urged that wagon breaking had become a menaningly frequent crime which was seriously affecting movement of essential commodities and in the context of this background, the act of wagon breaking committed by the petitioner, though single and solitary, could reasonably lead to the satisfaction that it was necessary to detain the petitioner with a view to preventing him from indulging in further acts of wagon breaking. Now in a given situation where wagon breaking as a crime has assumed alarming proportions and it is seriously obstructing and thwarting smooth and quick flow of supplies and services essential to the community, even a single act of wagon breaking by an individual may be regarded in a different light and conceivably afford justification for reaching a satisfaction that such individual may be detained in order to prevent him from acting in a prejudicial manner. But here we do not find anything in the affidavit filed by the District Magistrate in reply to the petition even remotely suggesting that wagon breaking was a c