The judgment establishes the principle that preventive detention under PASA Act requires the detaining authority to demonstrate a threat to public order and consider vital questions before making the detention order.

S.G. Shah, J.

1. Perused the petition, materials supplied to the detenu, detention order and heard learned counsel for the parties.

1.1 The respondent - State has not filed affidavit-in-reply. Therefore, averments and contentions raised in the petition remains unchallenged and un-controverted.

2. This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is directed against the order of detention dated 28.9.2015 passed by the respondent authority in exercise of powers conferred under Section 3(2) of the Gujarat Prevention of Anti Social Activities Act, 1985 (for short the Act) by detaining the detenue as a "bootlegger" as defined under Section 2(b) of the Act.

3. Learned advocate for the detenue submits that order of detention impugned in this petition deserves to be quashed and set aside on the ground that one offence registered against the detenu before the concerned police station vide III C.R. No. 550 of 2015 for the offences punishable under Sections 66(1)(b), 65(e) etc. of Prohibition Act is not of such magnitude and intensity as to have the effect of disturbing the public order so as to pass an order under Section 3(1) of the PASA Act. Learned advocate for the petitioner has further submitted that the detaining authority has not applied its mind to the vital facts and there was non-application of mind before recording the order of detention.

4. Learned A.G.P. for the respondent-State supported the detention order passed by the authority and submitted that sufficient material and evidence was found during the course of investigation, which was also supplied to the detenue, indicating that the detenue is in the habit of indulging into activities as defined under Section 2(b) of the Act and, considering the facts of the case, the detaining authority has rightly passed the order of detention and the detention order deserves to be upheld by this Court. For such submission, the learned A.G.P. took me through the grounds upon which detaining authority satisfied to detain the petitioner.

5. Section 2(b) of the Act defines the term "bootlegger" as under:-

"2(b). "bootlegger" means a person who distills, manufactures, slurs, transports, imports, exports, sells or distributes any liquor, intoxicating drug or other intoxicant in contravention of any provision of the Bombay Prohibition Act, 1949 (Bom. XXV of 1949) and the rules and orders made thereunder, or of any other law for the time being in force or who knowingly expends or applies any money or supplies any animal, vehicle, vessel or other conveyance or any receptacle or any other material whatsoever in furtherance or support of the doing of any of the things described above by or through any other person, or who abets in any other manner the doing of any such thing."

6. The order of detention is passed on the basis of what has come to be known as the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority such subjective satisfaction has to be arrived at on two points. Firstly, on the veracity of facts imputed to the person to be detained and secondly, on the prognostication of the detaining authority that the person concerned is likely to indulge again in the same kind of notorious activities. Whereas, normal laws are primarily concerned with the act of commission of the offence, the detention laws are concerned with character of the person who has committed or is likely to commit an offence. The detaining authority has, therefore, to be satisfied that the person sought to be detained is of such a type that he will continue to violate the laws of the land if he is not preventively detained. So, the commission of infraction of law, not done in an organized or systematic manner, may not be sufficient for the detaining authority to justifiably come to the conclusion that there is no alternate but to preventively detain the petitioner.

7. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and considering the facts and circumstances of the case, it appears that the subjective satisfaction