These are applications under section 491, Criminal Procedure Code, to issue directions in the nature of Habeas Corpus directing the release of the petitioners who were detained under the Madras Maintenance of Public Order Act, 1947 (Act 1 of 1947). As these petitions raised some common questions of law, we thought it convenient to hear and dispose of these questions before considering the merits of each application. The orders of detention under the Act in all the petitions except four, Cr.M.Ps. Nos. 1645 and 1651 of 1949, 1527 and 1611 of 1949 were passed after 12th March, 1948, and according to the petitioners on the date on which the orders of detention in these cases were passed, the Madras Maintenance of Public Order Act, 1947, ceased to be in force and that therefore the orders of detention were without authority and were illegal.

The Maintenance of Public Order Act, 1947 (Madras Act 1 of 1947), hereinafter called “the Act” in the course of this judgment, received the assent of the Governor-General on the 11th March, 1947, and was first published in the Fort St. George Gazette on the 12th March, 1947. Under section 1, sub-clause (3) of the Act, it came into force at once.