A member of the Legislature or Regional Committee enjoys no special privilege or immunity in the matter of preventive detention and during the period of such lawful detention he cannot claim that the authorities detaining him should arrange for his attendance at the meetings of the Legislature or the Regional Committee.

1. This is a petition under Art.226 of the Constitution of India by Shri Makhan Singh Tarsikka for issuance of a writ to the respondents to arrange for the participation of the petitioner in the meetings of the Punjabi Regional Committee fixed for 30th and 31st August, and 1st September, 1965. The respondents in the petition are the State Government of Punjab, the Home Secretary Punjab, the Chief Minister Punjab and the Home Minister Punjab.

2. The facts of the case are not in dispute. The petitioner is a Member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly and respondents Jandiala Constituency of the Amritsar District. The petitioner was detained under R.30 of the Defence of India Rules by the order dared 29th December 1964 of the Punjab Government. While in detention the petitioner received summons dated 10th August 1965 from the Chairman Punjab Regional Committee for participating in the meeting of the Punjab Regional Committee to be held on 30th and 31st August, and 1st September, 1965. The petitioner claims that it is his right to attend the above meetings of the Regional Committee. He has, accordingly, prayed for the issuance of a direction to the respondents to arrange for his participation in the said meetings.

3. During the pendency of the main petition the petitioner filed an application making a prayer for the same relief which had been made by him in the main petition. Notice of this application was issued to the respondents for today. Mr. Khoji on behalf of the petitioner and learned Deputy Advocate-General on behalf of the respondents, at the hearing of the application, prayed that as the matter involved in the application was the same as that in the main petition, the main petition itself may foe decided. Arguments were, accordingly, heard in the main petition.

4. The petition has been resisted on behalf of the respondents, and after hearing the arguments addressed at the Bar I am of the view that there is no merit in the petition. I may state at the outset that though in the petition it was mentioned that the meetings of the Regional Committee had been fixed for 30th and 31st August, and 1st September, 1965, at the hearing of the petition Mr. Khoji has stated that, according to the revised programme, the meeting was to be held only on 31st August and 1st September, 1965. The learned Deputy Advocate-General, however, has brought to my notice that the business of the Committee was finished in the meeting held on 31st August 1965 and that because of that the meeting fixed for 1st September 1965 has been cancelled. As the meeting for attending which the present petition had been filed has already taken place, the present petition in the very nature of things has become infructuous and as such is liable to be dismissed. As the matter is of some importance I have, all the same at the request of the learned counsel for the petitioner as well as the learned Deputy Advocate-General, gone into the merits of the petition.

5. The Regional Committees have been constituted by the President in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 371 of the Constitution, Clause (1) of which reads as under :

"371(1) Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, the President may, by order made with respect to the State of Andhra Pradesh or Punjab, provide for the constitution and functions of regional committees of the Legislative Assembly of the State, for the modifications to be made in the rules of business of the Government and in the rules of procedure of the Legislative Assembly of the State and for any special responsibility of the Governor in order to secure the proper functioning of the regional committees."

Notification No. S.R.O. 3524, dated 4th November, 1957 was issued by the President about the formation of the Punjab Regional Committees. According to this order there shall be two regional committees of the Assembly, one for the Punjabi region and the other for the Hindi region, consisting respectively of the members of the