Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J.:- Who will police the police? Is freedom of movements unreasonably fettered if policemen are given power of externment for public peace? These twin problems of disturbing import, thrown up by this bizarre case, deserve serious examination. The former is as important as the latter, especially when we view it in the strange police setting painted by the petitioner. The constitutional question, which we will state presently and discuss briefly, has become largely otiose so far as the present petitioner is concerned because counsel for the State has assured the court that they will drop police surveillance or any, action by way of externment as proposed earlier. The police methodology with sinister potential to human liberty described by the petitioner, if true, deserves strong disapproval and constitutional counteraction by this Court. But before committing ourselves to any course, we must set out the factual matrix from which the present case springs.

2. The statutory starting point of the criminal saga of Shri Prem Chand Paniwala, the petitioner, now threatened with externment proceedings, is the Delhi Police Act, 1978, Ss. 47 and 50 of the said Act clothe th