The main legal point established in the judgment is that the second ground raised in a petition must be a new ground to be maintainable, and the court will not entertain a petition if the ground was known to the petitioner when filing the earlier petition.

V.K. TAHILRAMANI, J.

1. Heard both sides.

2. Rule. By consent, Rule made returnable forthwith.

3. This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India seeks to challenge the order of detention under Section 3 of Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers, Drug-offenders and Dangerous Persons Act, 1981 ('M.P.D.A. Act' for short) passed against the detenu. The petitioner had earlier filed Writ Petition No. 2640 of 2015 challenging the validity of the very same detention order. The said Writ Petition came to be dismissed by the Division Bench of this Court by order dated 11.8.2015 after hearing the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned APP. The present petition is on the footing that fresh and new grounds of attack against the order of detention have been raised in the present petition and that successive petition on such fresh and new grounds is not barred on the principle of res-judicata or constructive res-judicata and hence, this petition ought to be decided on its own merit. The point in this petition thus concerns the permissibility of successive petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India challenging an order of detention and the parameters to be considered by the writ Court while entertaining such a petition.

4. Two grounds have been raised in the present petition. The first ground is in relation to delay in considering the representation and the second ground is delay in executing the order of detention. As far as, the first ground is concerned, Mr. Tripathi, learned Advocate for the petitioner states that he is not pressing the said ground and he is only pressing the second ground i.e delay in executing the order of detention. The learned APP however raised a preliminary objection that the second ground is not a new ground and hence, a Writ Petition raising such a ground is not maintainable.

5. It is to be noted that after extensive hearing, the Writ Petition which was earlier filed by the detenu i.e Writ Petition No. 2640 of 2015 was dismissed by the Division Bench of this Court. Mr. Tripathi submitted that the second ground i.e delay in executing the order of detention was not raised in the earlier petition and hence, not considered by this Court while deciding the earlier Writ Petition. He submitted that this ground of delay in executing the order of detention is a new ground and hence is not barred by principles of resjudicata or constructive res-judicata. In support of his contention that the second petition by a detenu is permissible against the very same detention order, he has placed reliance on a decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Shrikant Vs. District Magistrate, Bijapur & Ors., (2007) 1 SCC 486.

6. Mr. Tripathi relied on the observations in paragraph 8 of the decision in the case of Shrikant (supra) which is as under:-

"8. Whether any new ground has been taken, has to be decided by the court dealing with the application and no hard-and-fast rule can be laid down in that regard. But one thing is clear, it is the substance and not the form which is relevant. If some surgical changes are made with the context, substance and essence remaining the same, it cannot be said that challenge is on new or fresh grounds."

(Emphasis supplied)

Thus, on reading of the decision in the case of Shrikant (supra), it is seen that when there is new ground, a Writ Petition can be entertained. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Eleventh Edition, Revised) states that "new" means for the first time and not existing before. Encyclopaedic Law Lexicon by Justice C.K. Thakker 2013 Second Edition states that "new" means not existing before: now made, or brought into existence, for the first time. It also means something which was not existing before or brought into existence for the first time, not previously known and now known for the first time.

7. The ground raised by the petitioner in this second petition is that there was delay in executing the order of dete