Judgment

S. M. FAZAL ALI, J.:- This appeal by special leave is directed against the judgment of the Gujarat High Court dated December 22, 1978 in a Criminal Habeas Corpus Writ for quashing the order of detention passed against the detenu. The detenu was arrested on October 20, 1978 and grounds of detention were served on him that very day. The High Court allowed the Writ Petition mainly on the ground that, as one of the grounds, namely, ground No. 7 was irrelevant, the entire order of detention is vitiated. In coming to this finding, the High Court has put, in our opinion, a wrong interpretation on Sec. 5-A of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). Section 5-A reads thus:

"5-A. Grounds of detention severable :- Where a person has been detained in pursuance of an order of detention under sub-section (1) of Section 3 which has been made on two or more grounds, such order of detention shall be deemed to have been made separately on each of such grounds and accordingly -

(a) such order shall not be deemed to be invalid or inoperative merely because one or some of the grounds is or are-

(i) vague,

(ii) non-existent,

(iii) not relevant,

(iv) not connected or not proximately connected with such person, or

(v) invalid for any other reason whatsoever, and it is not therefore possible to hold that the Government or officer making such order would have been satisfied as provided in sub-section (1) of Sec. 3 with reference to the remaining ground or grounds and made the order of detention.

(b) the Government or officer making the order of detention shall be deemed to have made the order of detention under the said sub-section (1) after being satisfied as provided in that sub-section with reference to the remaining ground or grounds."

2. The High Court seems to think that Sec. 5-A contemplates that there should be only one ground which relates to the violation of Sec. 3 of the Act and if that ground is irrelevant and the other grounds which relate to some other subject-matter are clear and specific, the detention will not stand vitiated. In our opinion, the argument of the High Court, with due respect amounts to begging the question because the detention under Sec. 3 of the Act is only for the purpose of preventing smuggling and all the grounds whether there are one or more, would be relatable only to various activities of smuggling and we cannot conceived of any other separate ground which could deal with matters other than smuggling because the act of smuggling covers several activities each forming a separate ground of detention and the Act deals with no other act except smuggling. Indeed, if the interpretation of the High Court in respect of Sec. 5-A is accepted, then Sec. 5-A will become otiose. While construing Section 5-A the High Court observed thus:

"But in the present case the subjective satisfaction is based on one ground, that is, for preventing the present petitioner from smuggling goods and in support of that ground various statements have been relied upon and the totality of consideration of all these statements has resulted in the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority when it passed the impugned order of detention. Now for these totality of circumstances considered by the detaining authority, if one irrelevant or unsustainable element has entered in the process of subjective satisfaction, the process of arriving at subjective satisfaction being comprehensive, the said element would disturb the entire process of subjective satisfaction and consequently, even if one statement which could not have been relied upon appeared before the minds eye of the detaining authority, it could easily be seen that its subjective satisfaction would be vitiated and its final decision would rest upon a part of the material which is irrelevant."

The process of reasoning adopted by the High Court is absolutely unintelligible to us. It is manifest that whenever t