Fundamental right of a person to be defended by a legal practitioner.

The writ appeal has been filed against an order of a single Judge dismissing W.P. No. 16 of 1985 inlimineat the admission stage itself. It appearts that on an examination of a consignment of 7 drums of goods declared as Alkylaryl-sulphonate S.N. (Tamol) imported by one Messrs. Sudharsan Chemicals, Station Road, Ramnagar, Bangalore, under the cover of AWB No. 085-76881836 which was passed out of customs charge on payment of duty on 3-1-1985, it was found that the drums contained goods other than the goods declared in the bill of Entry. The goods were detained under Section 110 of the Customs Act. On 4-1-1985, another consignment of 5 drums of the same chemical imported by one Messrs. Lakshmi Chemicals, Karnataka, under cover of Bill of Entry dated 26-12-1984, was also found to contain goods other than the one declared in the Bill of Entry. On the ground tnat the Customs Authorities had reason to believe that the appellant is guilty of an offence under Section 135 of the Customs Act arrested him at 10 a.m. on 5-1-1985, under Section 104(1) of the Customs Act and produced him before the Magistrate the same evening at 3-30 P.M. The appellant thereafter was released on bail on the same day. In the affidavit filed in support of the writ petition, the appellant had stated that when he was in the Air Port at Madras on the 3rd of January, 1985, with a clearing agent, he was called by the Director of Revenue Intelligence Officials and taken to Air cargo Complex, and from there he was taken to their office in T. Nagar, Madras-17. He was taken inside a room and surrounded by two officers and other employees of the Department and was interrogated by them throughout the night. They did not allow him to sleep nor even to sit. He was severely beaten and ill treated and kept in unlawful detention till 5-1-1985 and forced to subscribe to statement made against his will. During the above period, he was not allowed to contact anybody including his advocate in spite of specific request. In fact, it was his case that his advocate was searching for him from 3rd of January, 1985 onwards, went to the office of the Director of Revenue Intelligence on the 4th and on the 5tb but he was not given any information about his presence there or about the interrogation. The Advocate wrote a letter on 5-1-1985 to the Assistant Collector of Customs stating that he understood that the appellant was in his custody since 3-1-1985 that he files his memo of appearance for him and that he may be permitted to be present at the time of interrogation if the appellant is there and is being interrogated. No reply was given to him. As already stated on 5-1-1985 at 10 A.M. the appellant was arrested and produced before the Magistrate on the same day. After he was released on bail, the Department had issued notices under Section 108 of the Customs Act requiring him to be present for enquiry or interrogation on the subsequent dates at stated hours. He did appear for enquiry on 8-1-1985 and gave a statement. In the meantime, on 21-1-1985 the learned Counsel for the appellant wrote a letter to the Department stating that Article 22(1) of the Constitution gives a fundamental right to the appellant to consult and to be defended by a legal practitioner and requested the respondents to inform him immediately whether he will be permitted to exercise the above right during interrogation. This request of the Counsel for the appellant was rejected on 30-1-1985. In the other three cases on the ground that the writ petitioners are involved in illicit export of snake skins, notices were issued to them under Section 108 of the Customs Act directing them to appear before the officers in connection with the investigation and or interrogation. In those cases also the petitioners pleaded that their Counsel shall be permitted to be present while they are interrogated by the Customs Officials.

2.In all these cases, the arguments of the learned Counsel for the appellant and the petitione