The main legal point established in the judgment is that the delay in making over the arrested person to the police station, resulting in non-compliance with the provisions of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1952, amounts to wrongful detention and infringement of constitutional and legal rights, for which compensation can be awarded in appropriate cases.

In this application under Article 226 of the Con­stitution of India, the petitioner Smti Purnima Barua complains that the arrest and detention of her son Dipanka Barua are unlawful and prays for a writ of Habeas Corpus and compensation.

2. Facts.-On receipt of reliable information that Dipanka is an ULFA activist, the army authority went to the house of the petiti­oner Purnima at Jorhat and enquired about her son Dipanka. The petitioner informed the army authority that her son Dipanka had gone to Guwahati in connection with marriage of his elder sister Swapnalee. The army authority searched the house of Swapnalee at Ulubari in Guwahati on 31.12.90 at about 2.00 pm accompanied by an Executive Magistrate and the army authority arrested Dipanka there from. After arrest of Dipanka on 31.12.90, the army authority made over Dipanka to the police station at Jorhat. The Jorhat police produced Dipanka before the Magistrate at Jorhat for remand order. As directed by this Court in this application Dipanka was produced on 7.1.91. It may be noted here that the dale of handing over Dipanka to Jorhat police is in dispute. We shall deal with it later in this judgment.

3. Mr. H. Roy, the learned counsel for the petitioner, in the course of the argument, has not sought the writ of habeas corpus as Dipanka has been arrested by the civil police in connection with-regular police case and he is now under trial prisoner. We are of the view that the learned counsel has rightly done so in view of the decision in Saptawana v. State of Assam, AIR 1971 SC 813. How­ever, the learned counsel has prayed for monetary compensation, stating that the army authority detained Dipanka wrongfully.

4. The Central Government was of the opinion that the whole of the State of Assam was in such a disturbed or dangerous cond­ition that the use of armed forces in aid of civil power was nec­essary and, therefore, the Central Government in the exercise of power conferred upon it by section 3 of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1952 (For short 'the Act') declared the whole of the State of Assam a disturbed area by issuing a notification Elated 27.11.90 in the official gazette. After the declaration, the armed forces have been used or deployed in aid of civil power.

5. In a disturbed area, section 4 of the Act authorizes army authority to arrest, or to search and arrest, arrest able persons. Sec­tion 5 of the Act provides ;

"Any person arrested and taken into custody under this Act shall be made over to the officer in charge of the nearest police station with the least possible delay, together with a report of the circumstances occasioning the arrest." (emphasis added)

The power of the army authority given by section 4 of the Act to arrest person implies the authority to detain, but the army auth­ority shall make over the arrested person to the officer in charge of the nearest police station with least possible delay, as provided under section 5.

6. The question then is.-What is the span of time, which is designated by the words "least possible delay". We are of the view that the words "least possible delay" may be said to do the thing within the shortest possible time. But no arbitrary time limit can be set down as it may not be possible in many cases to affirmatively say or quantify the period of time by reference to hours, dates or months. However, it will be possible having regard to the circums­tances of the case, to say whether thing was done or was not done with "least possible delay". Therefore, whenever the question of "least possible delay" arises for decision in computing the period of time the Court has to have regard to the particular circumstances of the case-Physical impossibility or otherwise to make over the arrested person to the nearest police station and how, where and in what circumstances the arrest was effected, for example.

7. Coming' to the present case, admittedly Shri Dipanka Barua was arrested from Ulubari of Guwahati city on 31.12.90.