The judgment established the importance of procedural safeguards and the right to make a representation against detention, emphasizing the need for strict compliance with constitutional protections.

PASAYAT, C.J.

Life without liberty is 'lasting' but not 'living'. As liberty is the life line of every human being, it is, therefore, not a matter of surprise that liberty is considered one of the most cherished and precious possession of every human being. No one likes fetters on his personal liberty.

2. Order of detention passed in respect of Koodathal Basheer (hereinafter referred to as 'detenu') in terms of Section 3(1)(i) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (in short 'the Act') dated 7-4-1999 is challenged by his mother on the ground that procedural safeguards mandated by Art. 22(5) of the Constitution of India, 1950 (in short 'Constitution') have been violated.

3. Article 21 of the Constitution having declared that no person shall be deprived of life and liberty except in accordance with the procedure established by law, a machinery was definitely needed to examine the question of illegal detention with utmost promptitude. The writ of habeas corpus is device of this nature. Blackstone called it 'the great and efficacious writ in all manner of illegal confinement'. The writ has been described as a writ of right which is grantable ex debito justitiae. Though a writ of right, it is not a writ of course. The applicant must show a prima facie case of his unlawful detention. Once, however, he shows such a case and the return is not good and sufficient he is entitled to this writ as of right.

4. Preventive detention is not a punitive but precautionary measure. The object is not to punish a person for having done something, but to prevent and intercept him before he does it again. No offence is proved, nor any charge is formulated and the justification of such detention is suspicion or reasonability and there is no criminal con viction which can only be warranted by legal evidence. Preventive justice requires an action to be taken to prevent apprehended objectionable activities. (see : Rex v. Hallidav, 1917 AC 260 Kubic Bhariusz v. Union of India, AIR 1990 SC 605 : (1990 Cri LJ 796). But at the same time, a persons greatest of human freedoms, i.e. personal liberty is deprived, and, therefore the laws of preventive detention are strictly construed, and a meticulous compliance with the procedural safeguards, however technical, is mandatory. The compulsions of the primordial need to maintain order in society, without which enjoyment of all rights., including the right of personal liberty, would lose all their meanings, are the rule justifications for the laws of preventive detention. Sometimes the deprivation of personal liberty of individuals becomes imperative to protect the society from denigrating. Laws that provide for preventive detention posit that an individual's conduct prejudicial to the maintenance of (a) supplies of commities necessary for the community, or (b) public order necessary for orderliness in the society, or (c) economic balance, stability and discipline, can provide ground for a satisfaction that similar propensities on the part of the person concerned are likely and there is a possible future manifestation. This jurisdiction has been described as a 'jurisdiction of suspicion' and the compulsion to preserve the values of freedom of a democratic society and social order and economic stability and discipline sometimes merit the curtailment of the individual liberty. (see : Ayya alias Ayub v. State of U.P., AIR 1989 SC 364 : (1989 Cri LJ 991). To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, said Thomas Jefferson, would be to lose the law aburdly sacrificing the end of the means. No law is an end itself and the curtailment of liberty for reasons of State's security and national economic discipline as a necessary evil has to be administered under strict constitutional restrictions. No carte blance is given to any organ of the State to be the sole arbiter in such matters. A constitutional protection is given to every detenu which mand