( 1 ) THIS is an application for a writ in the nature of habeas corpus under Section 491, Criminal P. C. , and Article 226, Constitution of India, presented on behalf of Syed Mohammad Athar Rizvi who is under detention in District Jail, Kanpur, under orders of the District Magistrate of Kanpur purported to have been passed in exercise of the powers given to him under Section 3, preventive Detention Act, 1950. The first point that was initially urged in support of this application, viz. , that the Preventive Detention Act, 1950, was ultra vires of the Indian parliament inasmuch as the main provisions of it were in conflict with the provisions of Part III of the Constitution, has now been concluded by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of a. K. Gopalan (A. I. R. (37) 1950 S. C. 27 : 61 Cr. L. J. 1383), a Madras detenu. It has been held by a majority of the Judges of the Supreme Court in that case that except for Section 14, preventive Detention Act, 1950, the rest of the Act is valid. This decision of the Supreme Court disposes of this preliminary point.

( 2 ) A second point that has been urged on behalf of the detenu again raises the same question of the validity of the provisions of this Act from another point of view. It has been contended that under Article 21, Constitution of India, a citizen can be deprived of his liberty only by a procedure established by law and in this case the Preventive Detention Act of 1950 does not fully prescribe the procedure by which the liberty may be taken away. This contention is based principally on the ground that Section 3, Preventive Detention Act, empowers the Central government or the State Government or where the District Magistrate may exercise those powers the District Magistrate to direct detention if satisfied, with respect to any person, that it is necessary to do so with a view to preventing him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the defence of India, the relations of India with foreign powers or the security of India or the security of the State or the maintenance of public order or the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community, but does not lay down the procedure by which the Central government, the State Government or the District Magistrate is to arrive at the satisfaction in this behalf. The contention of the learned counsel for the applicant is that the main provision of this section consists in directing the Central Government, the State Government or the District magistrate to be satisfied that it is necessary to pass such an order for one of the purposes mentioned in that section, and this Act ought to have given the procedure by which the satisfaction should have been arrived at. On the other hand, the learned Government Advocate has contended that the principal provision of Section 3 is the power to pass an order of detention and the satisfaction of the Central Government, the State Government or the District Magistrate is only a step to be gone through before that order can be passed. The satisfaction itself is, therefore, a step in the procedure which has to be gone through before a person is deprived of his liberty. The subsequent procedure is also provided by this Act in the subsequent sections of the act whereby the order passed is scrutinized and either confirmed or set aside. It was contended that all that the Courts could see was whether the law did prescribe the procedure or not by which the liberty of the citizen could be taken away, but they were not competent to examine whether that procedure was in accordance with the principles of natural justice or not and also whether the procedure was a complete procedure or an incomplete procedure according to the views of the Court. Article 21 of the Constitution left it entirely at the discretion of the legislature to prescribe the procedure and if the Legislature prescribed any particular procedure, the Court was not competent to go into the question, by importi