( 1 ) THE petitioner in this writ petition, fild under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, seeking issuance of a writ of habeas corpus or any other writ, order or direction, was detained on 23rd May 1988, in execution of detention order passed on 7th October 1987 under the provisions of Sections 3 (i) (iii) and 3 (i) (iv) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (for short the Act ), on the allegation that he had assisted one T. A. Sirajudeen @ Siraj in coming into possession of 60 gold biscuits, transporting and selling part of the said gold biscuits, for which the detenu had received remuneration from said Sirajudeen @ Siraj and having been associated with the said Sirajudeen @ Siraj in the matter of transportation, carriage and disposel of the smuggled sold.

( 2 ) THE brief facts in so far as these are relevant to the disposal of the present writ petition, and as gathered from the grounds of detention, are that a search of the house of T. A. Sirajudeen @ Siraj was carried on 30th November, 1986 by Superintendent, Central Excise and 11 gold biscuits were recovered buried in the floor of the house which was dug up at the instance of said Sirajudeen @ Siraj and gold of foreign markings was taken out. The statement given by him under Section 108 of the Customs Act revealed that the petitioner was his friend, and accompanied him from Delhi to Bombay for sale of the smuggled gold where both of them had stayed at Galaxy Lodge near Santa Cruz, and that they had been able to dispose of some of the gold biscuits carried by them and that. in all they had taken 60 gold biscuits to bombay and that the II recovered from his house were the remaining ones. Sirajudeen @ Siraj also revealed that the present petitioner Issac Babu was a friend of his brother T. A Hineefa and got acquainted with him at Delhi and all three of them had taken out the 60 gold biscuits concealed in a cooking range brought by one Abdul Rahiman and that they had kept concealed those gold biscuits at a guest house at Nizamuddin, New Delhi and thereafter had gone to Bombay. The search of the premises, where Sirajudeen @ Siraj had been slaying, was also carried out and amongst others, a visiting card of Hotel Galaxy, Santacruz (East) Bombay was recovered as also a rough road sketch containing detailed directions to reach Mullakkal Veedu of Issac,. namely, the house of the present petitioner.

( 3 ) PURSUANT to the statement of Sirajudeen @ Siraj search of the house of the present petitioner was carried out on 4th December 1986 when Indian currency of Rs. 43,500. 00 was recovered from the briefcase found in the house and also a note book containing certain accounts and visiting card of Hotel Galaxy, Bombay with number 301 noted on it. In the statement given by the petitioner under Section 108 of the Customs Act, he revealed that this money recovered from his house was balance of the amount of Rs. 75,000. 00 which had been given to him by T. A. Sirajudeen, as part of the sale proceeds of the gold biscuits, and that the account noted in the note book related to the amounts spent by him out of Rs. 75,000. 00.

( 4 ) THE detention order, subject matter of the present writ petition, was passed in face of the above facts, with a view to prevent the petitioner from indulging in transporting or concealing or keeping smuggled gold and also dealing with the same, in any other manner.

( 5 ) MR. S. R. Setia, Advocate appearing for the petitioner, urged primarily three pleas in an attempt to show that the detention order was not validly passed and that in any case the continued detention stands vitiated because of the delay in execution of the detention order, inasmuch as -it was served on the petitioner after period of 7 months.

( 6 ) MR. Setia has placed utmost emphasis on the last mentioned plea. because of the fact that the detention in the case of a co-detenu was quashed by the Supreme Court for the reason of