Remand orders passed by Magistrates without following the proper procedure and without jurisdiction are invalid and the detention of a person in pursuance of such orders is illegal.

( 1 ) THIS petition for awrit of. habeas-corpus was submitted by the petitioner Ram Rishi. Anal from Jail. At present, he is held in judicial custody in Central Jail, New Delhi. He prays that he may be set at liberty as his detention, according to him, is an illlegal detention.

( 2 ) THE petitioner was arrested on November 7,1966. He says that he was arrested when he was attending a public meeting organised by Gau Raksha Mahabhian Samiti near Parliament Street Police Station. His case is that at the time of his arrest, he was not informed as to the cause of his arrest nor was he produced before any Magistrate at any time, but yet he is continued to be detained. These acts of the respondents, according to him, amount to a contravention of Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution.

( 3 ) THE application of the pentitioner came up before a bench of this Court on January 9, 1967. On that day, notice of the petition was orderd to the respondents. They were also required to produce the petitioner at 10 A. M. on January 17, 1967. sri I. M. Oborai, Advocate, appeared in this case as amicus curiae.

( 4 ) - The respondents made their return on January 17, 1967. Sri C. L. Chhabra, Deputy Seperintendent of police. Parliament Street police Station, New Delhi, filed an affidavit on behalf of the respondents. Along with the teturn, no documents were produced. In fact, neither the records of the investigation nor the remand orders said to have been made by the various Magistrates were produced before the Court till the respondents were specifically directed to do so.

( 5 ) SRI Chhabra swore in his affidavit that the detenu was arrested on November 7, 1966, while he was participating in the demonstration outside the Parliament house. In his affidavit, he sets out the course of events, that took place on that day. I see no reason to disbelieve that version. It is the case of the petitioner that he had not been produced before any Magistrate at any time. In support of that plea, he has produced a large number of affidavits, sworn to by persons who are detained along with him. On the other hand, the concerned Magistrates have reported to the effect that petitioner had been produced before them and that they had remanded him to judicial custody on various dates. Though ordinarily I should have accepted the version given by the learned Magistrates in preference to that given by the petitioner and the other detained persons, the various circumstances appearing in this case, to which reference will be made presently, have made me doubt the fact that the petitioner was ever produced before any Magistrate.

( 6 ) AFTER his arrest on November 7, 1966, the petitioner along with several others was taken to the Delhi Cantonment Police Station. We have it from the report of Sri Panna Nand Gupta, Magistrate 1st Class, Delhi, that on that day, under directions from the District Magistrate, he proceeded to Delhi Cantonment Police Station and it is at that place that the petitioner was produced before him. From his report to this Court, it is clear that it is not a case of the petitioner having been produced before him in his court but it is a case of his having gone to the Police Station and there ordered the remand of the petitioner. In his report, he does not say that along with the remand report, the police had produced before him any copy of the entries in the police diary in support of their prayer for remand. It may be remembered that this report and the reports by the other Magistrates were submitted to this Court in pursuance of the order of this Court dated January 20, 1967, wherein they were directed to send the original remand reports submitted to them and the orders passed thereon. The learned Magistrates say that according to the practice prevailing in Delhi, when an under-trial prisioner is produced by the prosecuting agency, the order granting remand is passed on the application made by the police and the same is handed back to the poli