Hon'ble Ramesh Sinha,J.
Heard Sri Sunil Kumar, learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri Nitin Gupta, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent no.4 and Sri Sudhir Mehrotra, learned A.G.A. appearing on behalf of the State.
Counter and rejoinder affidavits have been exchanged between the parties.
The petitioner has preferred the present petition seeking a relief of quashing order No. 22 dated 14.1.2012 passed by the District Magistrate, Auraiya (Detaining Authority) under the National Security Act by which he has directed the petitioner to be detained in district jail, Etawah. The order was issued to the petitioner and similarly to the respondent no.3-Superintendent, District Jail Etawah. It was noted by the detaining authority that if the petitioner is aggrieved by the order of detention, he may file representation to the state government to whom the order of detention had already been forwarded by the detaining authority for its approval under the appropriate provision of law.
It is not in dispute that the order was approved by the state government and there was no time lag or violation of any of the provisions in granting approval to the order of detention. We are not concerned about these aspects of the case. We are also not going into the factual details of the case that ten counterfeit currency notes each of Rs. 500/- denomination, were allegedly recovered from the possession of the petitioner for which Case Crime No. 578 of 2001 under different Sections relating to counterfeit currency notes and possession thereof was registered at Auraiya police station. We also have not been addressed on this aspect of the petition that recovery of counterfeit currency notes cannot be the subject matter for drawing subjective satisfaction by the detaining authority to pass an order of the nature impugned herein. We assume that in appropriate cases, due to interest of the nation and society being involved, the detaining authority could be justified to pass an order of similar character and serve the same and thereby direct the detention for 12 months as per the provisions of law.
However, the detention order has to show that there was appropriate application of mind by the detaining authority and the application of mind was to the objective facts presented by the agency of the government and the application was to be completely to the facts so placed and the order has to be passed only after being satisfied regarding the existence of those facts. If any, extraneous matters are shown to a court to have influenced the mind of the detaining authority in passing the order of detention then in our considered view, the satisfaction could not be said to be subjective based on objective facts. This is the illegality which we have come across while perusing the impugned order dated 14.1.2012. We find a statement made at page 49 of the brief which is the part of the detention order that the detaining authority was requested by U.P. Vyapar Pratinidhi Mandal, Auraiya and Akhil Bhartiya Udyog Mandal that the recovery of alleged counterfeit currency notes from the petitioner and others required to be dealt with heavy hands and those requests were annexed as annexures 16 and 17 to the detention order. Thus, the contention of Sri Mehrotra that these are some superfluous statements made by the detaining authority while passing the order of detention, in our opinion, could not be sustained. Those representations which were filed by the above noted associations of business people in our opinion had affected the impact of the order impugned herein and, as such, we are of the opinion that the same is suffering from the vice of being passed under some influence and showed the lack of appropriate application of mind by the detaining authority. Not only that, we find that the application of mind was not to the objective satisfaction rather it is based on extraneous facts presented by some business communities before the detaining authority and those representations were as equally influencing the judicial mind of the authority as was the representatives of the investigating agency or the Superintendent of police Auraiya.
We hardly require to point out that the detaining authority is found lacking in applying his mind properly to the objective facts for being his subjectively satisfied or, in other words, he is found influenced by some extraneous materials which could be irrelevant for passing the order of detention. Thus, the order cannot not be said to be falling within the four walls of law so as to be protected or sustained.
In the result, we quash the detention order impugned herein (annexure-4) passed by the District Magistrate, Auraiya and direct that if the petitioner is not required in connection with any other crime, he could not be detained further in district jail Auraiya by any authority including respondent no.3 The petition is allowed.
Order Date :- 5.7.2012 Shiraz