The necessity for detention, withholding of relevant material, and the impact of withheld material on the detention order were the central legal points established in the judgment.

( 1 ) PETITIONER was arrested on 5. 7. 2001 by custom officials at IGI Airport for allegedly having smuggled 42 mobile phones worth Rs. 4. 50 lacs or so. He moved several bail applications before ACMM and ASJ which were rejected till he was eventually granted bail by this court by order dated 29. 10. 2001. But before he could come out on bail, he was detained by order dated 28. 9. 2001. He was supplied grounds of detention and the list of relied upon documents. He made a representation dated 17. 10. 2001 against his detention and requested for revocation of his detention order or alternatively for supply of some documents/material. His representation was rejected. He made a representation again on 29. 10. 2001 which also met the same fate by order dated 18. 11. 2001. His detention was eventually confirmed for 12 months by order dated 8. 11. 2001.

( 2 ) PETITIONER has filed this petition to challenge his detention on a variety of grounds. His first plea is that his detention was unjustified as there was no prospect of his being bailed out as was evident from rejection of his bail applications on various dates. Support for this is drawn from the judgment in Amritlal vs. Union Government (2001) 4 LRI 727.

( 3 ) PETITIONER also alleges that relevant material was withheld from the detaining authority and was not placed before him. He refers to statements of employees of M/s. B. D. Denim in this regard with whom he was linked by customs authority and which according to him were exculpatory in nature and his retraction statement dated 10. 7. 2001 and pre-charge evidence before ACMM and which, if placed before the detaining authority, would have influenced his mind and decision one way or the other. He also claims that he had despatched his retraction statement to the sponsoring authority from jail but that authority had failed to place it before the detaining authority which would vitiate the detention. Reliance in this regard is placed by his counsel on Ayya alias ayub Vs. state of U. P AIR 1989 sc 365, shri Ram Goyal vs. Union Of India 1984 Crl. L. J. 1048 and Smt. Manjulaben mulchand Shah Vs. The Union of India 1985 (1) Crimes 897 to show that withholding of the relevant material by the sponsoring authority resulted in non-application of mind by the detaining authority and would vitiate the detention.

( 4 ) PETITIONER also claims that detaining authority had failed to supply him some documents like statements of three employees of M/s. B. D. Denim, valuation report and guidelines for passing of order under COFEPOSA and that his representation in this regard was not duly considered and unjustifiably rejected which would vitiate the detention. Reference in this regard is made to Mohd. Zakir Vs. Delhi Administration AIR 1982 SC 696 and Vinod Kumar Arora Vs. The Adminitrator, Union territory of Delhi 1984 Cri. L. J. 1344.

( 5 ) PETITIONER s last grievance is that he was supplied some illegible documents which had handicapped him in making his representation against his detention infringing his right under Article 226.

( 6 ) RESPONDENT has refuted all this in the counter affidavit filed by Deputy Secretary (Home) G. L. Meena. It is submitted in this that detaining authority had considered all bail applications of petitioner which were rejected by ACMM and ASJ and had also taken in regard likelihood of bail being granted in such cases and then deemed it necessary to pass the detention order. It is denied that any relevant material was suppressed or withheld from the detaining authority. The statements of three employees of M/s. B. D. Denim were neither relied upon not REFERRED TO by the detaining authority in passing the detention order and as such the question of withholding these documents or supplying copies of these to petitioner did not arise. The retraction allegedly dated 10. 7. 2001 was also not received by the Government or by the sponsoring authority but the retraction made by the petitioner before ACMM was placed be