PETITIONER: MISHRILAL JAIN Vs. RESPONDENT: DISTRICT MAGISTRATE, KAMRUP & ORS. DATE OF JUDGMENT14/10/1971 BENCH: ACT: Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971, s. 3(2)(a)-At least one of the grounds of detention vague-Effect on detention.order. HEADNOTE: The petitioner was a dealer in salt in the State of Assam. On account of unprecedented floods there was an acute scarcity of salt in the State. Although there was no law in the State regulating its distribution and sale, the Deputy Commissioner, in consultation with the representatives of the local Chamber of Commerce, fixed the ceiling price of salt. The District Magistrate passed an order for detaining the petitioner under s. 3(2)(a) of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971, on the grounds : that he availed himself of the opportunity for profiteering in the commodity, (1) by resorting to hoarding, and (2) by secretly selling this essential commodity at exorbitant rates, and was therefore acting in a manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community. In a petition under Art. 32 of the Constitution challenging the validity of the detention order, the petitioner contended that the grounds were vague and hence he had no opportunity to make a representation. Allowing the petition, HELD : (1) The first ground was vague as no effective representation could have been made on its basis in the absence of particulars of the profiteering or hoarding activity. [1103 G-H] (2)Even assuming that this ground was not vague the second ground was vague, because, the idea of exorbitant rate is a relative one, and the ground did not convey any definite idea as to the price at which he was selling salt, nor the time or place of the sales or the persons to whom the sales were effected. Since at least one of the grounds was vague the order of detention was vitiated. [1103 H; 1104 A-B, F-G] State of Bombay v. Atma Ram Sridhar Vaidya, [1915] 11 S C. R. 167, 184, Rameshwar Lal Patwari v. State of Bihar, [1968] 2 S.C.R. 505, Pushkar Mukherjee v. State of W. Bengal, [1969] 3 S.C.R. 635 and Motilal fain v. State of Bihar, [1968] 3 S.C.R. 587, followed. Kashav Talpade v. King Emperor, [1943] F.C.R. 88, applied. JUDGMENT:
ORIGINAL JURISDICTION : Writ Petition No. 375 of 1971.
Petition under Art. 32 of the Constitution of India for a
writ in the nature of habeas corpus.
A. K. Sen J. P. Bhattacharjee, D. N. Mukherjee, D. K.
Hazarika and thepetitioner in person, for the
petitioner.
S. V. Gupte and Naunit Lal, for the respondent.
1102
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by,
Mathew, J. This application filed under Article 32 of the
Constitution challenges the validity of an order for
detaining the petitioner,’ passed by the District Magistrate
of Kamrup, under Section 3 (2) (a) of the Maintenance of
Internal Security Act, 1971 on August 30, 1971 and prays for
the issue of a writ in the nature of habeas corpus.
On the conclusion of the hearing of the case on October 7,
1971, we passed the following order :-
“We are satisfied that the order of the District Magistrate,
Kamrup, dated August 30, 1971, detaining the petitioner
under s. 3(2)(a) of the Maintenance of Internal Security
Act, 1971. cannot be sustained and as such the order of
detention is set aside and the detenu is directed to be set
at liberty forthwith. The grounds for the decision will be
given in due course.”
Now we proceed to state the facts and give the grounds of
our decision.
The petitioner was a dealer in salt and other commodities at
Gauhati in the State of Assam. On account of unprecedented
flood the State was practically cut off from the rest of the
country in the month of July and August, 1971 and there was
acute scarcity of salt in the State. Although there was no
law in the State regulating the distribution, sale or price
of. salt. the Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup in consultation
with the representatives of the Kamrup Chamber of Commerce
fixed the ceiling price of salt at Rs. 19/- per bag of 75
kg. by his order dated August 14, 1971. It was on the
allegation that the petitioner was acting in a manner
prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and services
essential to the community that the District Magistrate
passed the order for detaining the petitioner.
The grounds of detention communicated to the petitioner read
as follows :-
“1. That you are the proprietor of M/s.
Mishrilal Nirmal Kumar of Fancy Bazar,
P.S.Gauhati, District-Kamrup which mainly
deals in salt-an essential commodity for human
consumption. Prices of essential commodities
including salt have recorded unprecendented
rise in the middle of July, 1971 and salt
became so scarce that this essential commodity
was selling in and around Gauhati at
exceptionally high prices immediately after
the breaches of road and tram commun
ications
between Assam and the rest of the
1103
country. You, being one of the leading
dealers of salt at Gauhati, availed yourself
of the opportunity of profiteering in this
commodity by resorting to hoarding.
The sudden disappearance of this most
essential commodity from Gauhati Market and
resultant acute scarcity and high prices
resorted to by you and other unscrupulous
dealers became a subject matter of criticism
both in the local press and the platform and
the situation ultimately posed a serious
threat to the maintenance of law and order at
Gauhati in August, 1971.
In order to ease the supply position of this
commodity, the Deputy Commissioner, Kamrup
fixed on 14-8-71 a ceiling on the prices of
salt at Rs. 19.00 per bag and you wilfully
organized profiteering by secretly selling
this essential commodity at exorbitant rates
at Gauhati by creating an artificial scarcity
yourself even after fixation of its price by
Deputy Commissioner, Kamrup on 14-8-71 and
thereby acted in a manner prejudicial to the
maintenance of supplies and services essential
to the community and your being at large has,
therefore, constituted a risk to the mainte-
nance of supplies and services essential to
the Community.
Sd/- Illegible
District Magistrate,
Kamrup, Gauhati.”
The petitioner filed a representation against the grounds.
it he contended among other things that the grounds were
vague. The representation was rejected and the Governor of
Assam approved the order of detention under Section 3(3) of
the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971.
The argument put forward by counsel on behalf of the peti-
tioner was that the grounds were vague and. therefore. the
petitioner had no effective opportunity of making a
representation.
The first ground only stated that the petitioner availed
himself of the opportunity of the acute scarcity of salt in
Gauhati for profiteering in this commodity by resorting to
hoarding. We think that this ground was vague as no
effective representation could have been made on its basis
in the absence of any Particulars of the profiteering or
hoarding activity. Even assuming that this ground was not
vague, we are satisfied that the other ground suffers from
this vice. That ground was that the Deputy Commissioner,
Kamrup fixed on 14-8-71 a ceiling on the prices of salt at
Rs. 19.00 per bag of 75 Kg. and the petitioner wilfully
1104
organised profiteering by secretly selling this essential
commodity at exorbitant rates at Gauhati by creating an
artificial scarcity even after the fixation of its price by
the Deputy Commissioner, Kamrup. The case that the
petitioner has been selling salt at “exorbitant rate does
not convey any definite idea as to the price at which he
sold the article. The idea of exorbitant rate is relative
one. It has no absolute connotation. What may appear
exorbitant rate to one may not be exorbitant to another. In
the counter affidavit on behalf of the Government of Assam
it is stated that the petitioner was selling salt at Rs.
35/- per bag of 75 Kg. But that would not cure the defect
of vagueness in the ground. Nor was there any mention in
the ground of the time or place of the sales or the persons
to whom the sales were effected. In the State of Bombay v.
Atma Ram Sridhar Vaidya(1), the court said
“The contention that the grounds are vague
requires some clarification………… If the
ground which is supplied is incapable of being
understood or defined with sufficient
certainty it can be called vague. It is not
possible to state affirmatively more on the
question of what is vague. It must vary
according to the circumstances of each
case……….. If no reading the ground
furnished it is capable of being intelligently
understood and is sufficiently definite to
furnish materials to enable the detained
person to make a representation against the
order of detention it cannot be called vague.”
Tested by this standard we think the second ground at any
rate was definitely vague.
If the grounds are vague, it is settled by a series of
rulings of this Court that the order of detention would be
bad (see Ramesh war Lal Patwari v. State of Bihar (2 ) and
Pushkar Mukherjee and others v. The State of West Bengal(“).
Even if the second ground alone was vague, that would be
sufficient to vitiate the order of detention.
In Kashav Talpade v. The King Emperor(4) it was
observed:
“..The detaining authority gave here two
grounds for detaining the petitioner. We can
neither decide whether these grounds are good
or bad, nor can we attempt to assess
in what
manner and to what extent each of these
grounds operated on the mind of the
(1) [1951] S.C.R. 167,184. (2) [1968] (2)
S.C.R. 505.
(3) [1969] (2) S.C.R. 635. (4) [1943]
F.C.R. 88.
1105
appropriate authority and contributed to the
creation of the satisfaction on the basis of
which the detention order was made. To say
that the other ground, which still remains, is
quite sufficient to sustain the order, would
be to substitute an objective judicial test
for the subjective decision of the executive
authority which is against the legislative
policy underlying the statute. In such cases,
we think, the position would be the same as if
one of these two grounds was irrelevant for
the purpose of the Act or was wholly illusory
and this would vitiate the detention order as
a whole.”
The passage was quoted with approval by this Court in
Rameshwar Lal v.State of Bihar(1). In Pushkar Mukherjee and
others v. The State’ of West Bengal(2), Ramaswami J.
speaking for the court said that if some of the grounds
supplied to the detenu are so vague that they would
virtually deprive the detenu of his statutory right of
making the representation that would make the order of
detention invalid. The same view was expressed by Hegde J.
in Motilal Jain v. State of Bihar and others(3).
We think that the order of detention was illegal and it is
accordingly quashed.
V.P.S. Petition allowed.
(1) [1968](2) S.C.R. 505.
(2)[1969] (2)S.C.R.635. (3)(1968)(3)S.C.R.587,
119SupC.I./72-2500-27-11-1972-GIPF.
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