( 1 ) THE petitioner whose husband is detained purusuant to an order passed under Section 3 (1) of the Gujarat Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act 1985 (PASA for short) by the Commissioner of Police Ahmedabad city has brought in challenge the said order of detention in this petition on diverse grounds.

( 2 ) THE impugned order is dated 29 It recites that the detaining authority is satisfied with respect to the detenu that the view to preventing him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order in the area of Ahmedabad city it is necessary to make an order directing him to be detained. Along with the order of detention the detenu was also served with the order indicating that he may be detained in Sabarmati Central Prison. He was also served with grounds of detention supporting the detention order and alongwith the grounds of detention was supplied supporting material on which reliance was placed by the detaining authority for passing the impugned order of detention. The documents supplied along with the grounds of detention are also listed in the index indicating that 10 such documents were supplied and the bunch of documents comprising these documents consisted of 52 pages. The grounds of detention indicated that the detenu is alleged to be involved in various prohibition cases listed in the grounds and these cases were filed under Sections 66 65 and 81 of the Bombay Prohibition Act and they were pending trials. That the detenu was accordingly found to be a bootlegger and his activities as such had disturbed the public order. That conclusion was reached by the detaining authority in the ground of detention on the basis of the statements of witnesses a summary whereof was included in the grounds of detention.

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( 4 ) MR. H. L. Patel learned Advocate for the petitioner has raised the following contentions in support of the petition: (1)THE detaining authority has not reached a genuine comprehensive satisfaction about the need to detain the detenu under the provisions of PASA Act after considering the vital fact that the detenu was released on bail in the concerned criminal cases in which he was involved and as this vital aspect was not taken into consideration by the detaining authority while passing the impugned order the subjective satisfaction has got vitiated and consequently the order of detention is bad in law. (2) The detaining authority has similarly not considered another vital aspect viz. that instead of detaining the detenu by way of preventive detention it was open to the authorities to get bail orders granted to him by competent criminal court in pending criminal cases cancelled on the ground that despite granting of bail the detenu had continued the alleged nefarious activities and as this lesser remedy was available to the authorities a more drastic order of preventive detention ought not to have been passed. In any case this aspect should have been kept in view by the detaining authority while coming to his subjective satisfaction about absolute need to detain the detenu under the PASA Act and as this vital aspect was not kept in view by the detaining authority his subjective satisfaction underlying passing of the impugned order get vitiated and hence also the detention order is null and void and is liable to be quashed. (3) Similarly the detaining authority while passing the impugned order has not kept in view the fact that there was lesser remedy available against the detenu by way of passing appropriate orders under Section 56 of the Bombay Police Act for actually externing the detenu from the limits of Ahmedabad city where he is alleged to have carried on his nefarious activities as indicated in the order and the grounds of detention and as this aspect of less drastic remedy is not kept in view and has not entered the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority while passing impugned order the impugned order is liable to be quashed on this gro