Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J. :- A single act of outrageous violence in a running train on February 16, 1973 by an armed gang, of which the petitioner was alleged to be a member, persuaded the District Magistrate of Nadia to direct his detention under sub-section 1 (a) (ii) of S. 3 of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971 (Act XXVI of 1971) (hereinafter called the MISA, for short). The subsequent statutory requirements have been fulfilled impeccably and the only major submission of the petitioner is that, on merits, he is not guilty, that a case charge-sheeted against him has ended in a discharge and that a single incident is insufficient to constitute a stream of tendency warranting preventive detention. Most of the submissions urged have no force. The fact that the petitioner was discharged by a court for the same crime does not bear on the power to detain, nor are we impressed with the other arguments urged before us. Learned counsel Sri Malviya, appearing amicus curiae, strenuously contended that one swallow does not make a summer and likewise a solitary incident cannot imperil maintenance of internal security and so the over is bad. He relied on certain rulings of this C