The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of 'public order' and the impact of delay in the proposal process on a detention order.

JUDGMENT

S. M. Modak, J. - The only issue involved in this Writ Petition is whether there was a sufficient material available before Detaining authority i.e. Commissioner of Police Pune City while detaining the Petitioner. as per the Order dated 20th July 2021, for the period of two years the Petitioner is detained in Yerwada Central Prison.

2. We have heard Mr. R. M. Haridas, the learned counsel for the Petitioner and Mrs. S. D. Shinde, learned aPP for the Respondent-State.

3. The materials which were considered by the Detaining authority consist of two offences registered at the Uttam Nagar Police Station on 23 rd January, 2021 and 5th March 2021. apart from that, there were statements of two witnesses recorded on 5th March 2021 and 2nd april 2021. Earlier to these offences, there was an offence registered with the same Police Station on 5th april 2019. Thereafter, action was initiated against the Petitioner under Section 107 of Code of Criminal Procedure. The Detaining authorities contend that this preventing action has not deterred the Petitioner from committing further offences and he did committed two offences in the year 2021.

4. The proposal for initiating action under Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers 3 [Drug-offenders, Dangerous persons and video pirates] act, 1981 was initiated by Sponsoring authority i.e. Senior Inspector of Police, Uttam Nagar Police Station and after the proposal was routed through various authorities, it reached the Detaining authority, and accordingly the Order came to be passed. The learned advocate for the Petitioner challenged the action of preventing detention on the following grounds :

(a) On the basis of two offences, the Petitioner cannot be said to be a dangerous person.

(b) Without admitting the commission of offences, it cannot be said that by the commission of those offences, there was disturbance of Public orders.

(c) The second offence was registered on 5th March 2021 and the statements were recorded on 26th March 2021 and 2nd april 2021, and as such, there is a delay in between the second offence and recording of statement.

(d) There was delay in finalizing the proposal. The Detaining authority received the proposal on 1st July 2021. Whereas the impugned order was passed on 20th July 2021.

5. In order to buttress his submission the learned counsel for the Petitioner relied upon a judgment given by Division Bench of this court in case of anil Tukaram Mohite Vs. Commissioner of Police and Ors. 2021 SCC Online Bom 2969 and second in case of Pradeep Nilkanth Paturkar Vs. S. Ramamurthi and Ors. 1993 Supp (2) Supreme Court Cases 61 and third in case of Salman Vs. State of Maharashtra 2020 SCC Online Bom 858 (2020) 3 aIR Bom R (Cri) 91.

6. as against this, the learned aPP submitted that two offences has certainly affected the Public Order, if the Sections applied in those offences and the modus operandi for commission of these offences is considered, it certainly affects the Public disorder. according to her, there is no delay in Scrutinizing the proposal. according to her, due to the extra-ordinary Covid situation, certain time was taken in forwarding the proposal. That is to say after verifying the two statements by assistant Commissioner of Police, certain time was exhausted in submitting the proposal. according to her, even there is no delay in finalizing the proposal at various levels and after passing the order. accordingly, she prayed for dismissal of this Petition.

Dangerous Person

7. In Order to ascertain whether the Petitioner can be considered as dangerous person, we have perused the record made available in respect of two offences registered in the year 2021, (i) Dated 23/01/2021 under Section 307 and other Sections of the IPC, (ii) Dated 05/03/2021 under Section 4 read with 25 of the arms act and other Sections.

8. The first is registered at Khadakwasala Police Station whereas second is at Uttam Nagar Police Station. The first informant in first off