IMPORTANT POINT
Non-supply of any material or vital portion of a document relied upon by Detaining Authority, in the language known to detenu, amounts to non-supply of documents itself.

JUDGMENT

S.K. Agarwal, J. - This judgment I disposes of above noted three writ petitions, by which petitioners have challenged three separate retention orders passed against them each dated 6th April. 1999 under Section 3(1) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (for short the Act) by the respondent No. 2 with a view to preventing them from engaging in and transporting smuggled goods. These petitions raise a common question whether petitioners were prevented from making effective representation against the impugned order of detention on the ground that complete copies of the documents, in the, language known to them, relied upon by the Detaining Authority, were not supplied thereby vitiating their continued detention.

2. Brief facts are: That on 9th August. 1998 officers of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (for short DRI) intercepted an abandoned truck near Agra: no person was available in the truck, the officers kept surveillance for nearly two hours to locate its driver or any of its occupant but in vain. Thereafter truck was brought from Agra to the Office of D.R.I.. pai-yavaran Bhawan, CGO Complex, New Delhi from which 228 packages containing bearings and other miscellaneous items, viz. re-chargeable light with radio and cassette player of foreign origin collectively valued at Rs. 90,49,550/-, were recovered. These were seized under the Customs Act, 1962. Contraband items were found concealed under some animal fodder. Receipts of the animal fodder recovered from the truck revealed that the goods originated from Siliguri, West Bengal. A follow-up action was taken and during investigations the petitioners were summoned: they, in their separate statements recorded on 14th September, 1998, inter alia, admitted that they had been dealing in smuggling of foreign goods for the last about 3 years alongwith their associates. However, they claimed that for the last about 4-5 months they had been working independently and the goods seized by the DRI belonged to their syndicate and were loaded in the first of August, 1998 from Kishanganj: that the contraband was owned by Kamal Hazra, petitioner. Consequently, they were arrested and produced before the Judicial Magistrate, Siliguri on 15-9-1998 and transit remand was obtained. Thereafter, they were brought to Delhi and produced in the Court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Patiala House, New Delhi and were remanded to judicial custody from time to-time.

3. On the basis of the above allegations a complaint was filed under the Customs Act. 1962 on 12-11-1998 in the Court of Additional Chief Metropolitan, Magistrate New Delhi, cognizance of which was taken by the learned Trial Court. In the meantime a show cause notice was41so issued by the Customs Authorities and a reply to the same was sent by them.

4. Petitioner - Anil Das, was ordered to be released in bail by learned Single Judge of this Court vide orders dated 4-1-1999. However, he surrendered himself before the Court at Siliguri where he was wanted in connection with another case. Petitioner- Badan Ghosh, was released on bail by Additional Sessions Judge vide orders dated 18-1-1999 and petitioner - Kamal Hazra, was released on bail by learned Single Judge of this Court vide order dated 19-2-1999.

5. On 6th April, 1999 the Detaining Authority passed the impugned detention order taking into consideration their past activities and antecedents, high potentiality and propensity to indulge in such activities in future, which was served on the petitioners on 8th and 9th April, 1998 while they were in custody, and copies of the documents, with Bengali translation relied upon, were supplied to them as per law.

6. We have heard learned Counsel for the parties and have been taken through the record.

Learned Counsel for the petitioners argued that the only language known to the petitioners is Bengali and in the Bengali sets of documents the statements supplied to petitioners