New Delhi: The Supreme Court has held that the detaining authority cannot pass preventive detention orders for extraneous reasons or on irrelevant and vague grounds.

It is trite law that a detention order is not curative or reformative or punitive action but is preventive action. Its avowed object is to prevent anti-social and subversive elements from imperilling the welfare and security of the nation, disturbing the public tranquillity, and indulging in smuggling or illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, said a Bench consisting of Justices S.B. Sinha and P.K. Balasubramanyan.

Courts could interfere in preventive detention cases if they were satisfied that the impugned order was not passed under the relevant Act, that it was sought to be passed against a wrong person, that it was passed for a wrong purpose on vague, extraneous or irrelevant grounds and that the authority which passed the order had no authority to do so.

In this case, industrialist Rejinder Arora was arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and allegedly tortured for two days before being remanded to judicial custody. During the 60 days he was in custody, he was in hospital for 45 days for treatment of injuries. He was later released on bail.

Mr. Arora filed a criminal complaint against the officials who tortured him and even as these proceedings were pending, he was detained under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act. The Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed his writ petition challenging the detention.

Appeal allowed

Allowing the appeal, the Bench noted that the detention order was passed more than nine months after Mr. Arora was arrested. "When there is undue and long delay between the prejudicial activities and the passing of the detention order, the court has to scrutinise whether the detaining authority has satisfactorily examined the delay and afforded a tenable and reasonable explanation why it has occasioned."

The Bench said: "When there is an unsatisfactory and unexplained delay between the date of order of detention and the date of securing the arrest of the detenu, the delay would throw considerable doubt on the genuineness of the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority."

Pointing out that the delay had not been properly explained, the Bench set aside the detention order and directed the release of Mr. Arora.

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