( 1 ) THIS writ petition challenges the order of detentiondated 23/03/1994 bearing No. F. No. 673/30/94-Cus. VIII, passed by Sh. Mahendra Prasad, Joint Secretary to the Govt. of India under section 3 (1) of theconservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act,1974 (hereinafter referred to as the COREPOSA Act) by which the petitioner wasordered to be detained and kept in custody in Central Jail, Tihar, Delhi.

( 2 ). Briefly the facts are that the officers of the Enforcement Directorate, Delhizonal Office, intercepted a Maruti Car bearing registration No. DL-2c-F4598 and amaruti Van with registration No. DL-3c-E1822 at Sonauli Border while the said twovehicles were driving to cross over to Nepal alongwith their passengers. The searchof both the vehicles was conducted under Section 36 of Foreign Exchange Regulationact, 1973.-As a result of the search foreign exchange as per details given below wasrecovered arid seized. It was found concealed in the cavities of the vehicles.

( 3 ). Apart from the above seized foreign exchange certain incriminating documents were recovered and seized from the cavities of the said vehicles. As thevehicles were allegedly being used for illegal trafficking of foreign exchange, thesame were also seized by the officers of the Directorate. Statements of the passengersof the vehicles, namely, S/shri Naresh Bhardwaj Virender Chopra, Jaspal Singh,m. M. Sharma, Geeta Arora and Kumari Poonam Arora, under Section 39 of theforeign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973 were recorded. In view of some of thestatements recorded by the officers of the Directorate of Enforcement respectively,the premises of Praveen Kapur at 62, Sainik Vihar was searched on 22. 1. 94. 200 goldcoins 6. 5 lacs of Indian currency and certain documents were seized from there. Statement of Beena Kapur wife of Praveen Kapur was recorded. Statement of O. P. Gupta, father of the present petitioner was also recorded.

( 4 ). On 23/03/1994 order of detention was passed against the petitionerunder Section 3 (1) of the COFEPOSA Act by respondent No. 2 with a view to preventhim from acting in any manner prejudicial to the conservation of foreign exchange. According to the respondents as disclosed in the grounds of detention the petitionerwas also a passenger in one of the cars which were intercepted on 21. 1. 1994 and heslipped and ran away towards Nepal side of the border. Therefore, no statement ofthe petitioner was recorded. On 11. 6. 1994 the order of detention was served on thepetitioner by the police and he was taken in custody. On 15/06/1994 grounds ofdetention and list of relied upon documents containing the documents were servedon the petitioner. On 20/06/1994 reference was made to the Advisory Boardunder Section 8b of the COFEPOSA Act.

( 5 ). The petitioner has taken several grounds in the writ petition challenging thedetention order. However, the main emphasis at the time of hearing was on theground of non-supply of legible copies of relied upon documents to the petitioner. As already noted a list of relied upon documents alongwith photo copies of thedocuments was served on the petitioner on 15/06/1994. On 1. 7. 1994 a representation was sent by the petitioner to the Central Government whereby legible copiesof some of the relied upon documents were asked for. A copy of the saidrepresentation has been placed on record as Annx. X-II. As per para 4 of therepresentation the petitioner submitted that documents Nos. 2 and 98 of the Englishbunch of documents and documents Nos. 54 to 57,93,94,102,103,110,115,116, 121,123, 125 and 127 of the Hindi bunch of documents were absolutely illegible. Thepetitioner submitted that because of this the petitioner was unable to make aneffective and purposeful representation which was his fundamental right in view ofthe provisions of Art. 22 of the Constitution of India.

( 6 ). In this behalf it is to be noted that the impugned detention order itself makesthe petitioner awa