( 1 ) THIS is a petition praying for the issue of a writ Habeas Corpus for release of the petitioner who has been detained under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act. 1974 ("cofeposa") under a detention order dated 4. 1 1. 1985.

( 2 ) IT is not necessary to set out in detail the grounds of detention communicated to the petitioner because we find that the writ petition has to be allowed on a very snort point which we shall refer to a little later. We may just set out a few relevant dates and events. Ihe petitioner arrived at Trivandrum airport from Kuwait on 9. 6 1985. He thereafter proceeded to a place called Thikkodi in taxi along with two other persons. The taxi was intercepted on the way by the officers of the customs and the petitioner was interrogated by the authorities on certain allegations of smuggling gold between the 10th June, 1985 and 12th June, 19s5 when be was produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate at Calicu,. Subsequently, on 25th August, 1985. the Customs Department filed a complaint in the Court of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Trivandium urder section 135 (1) (i) of the Customs Act and