JUDGMENT Giridhar Malviya, J.
1. This habeas corpus petition has been filed against the detention of the petitioner Under Section 3(2) of the National Security Act in pursuance of an order dated 17-9-1992 passed by the District Magistrate, Nainital directing the petitioner to be detained as it was necessary to detain him to maintain the public order.
2. The grounds furnished to the petitioner indicate that he is the leader of the gang which indulges in illegally entering the reserve forest and cutting away the trees and that the petitioner has generated terror in his capacity as a person who smuggles out the jungle property. The people with a view to save their lives and property do not muster up courage to report against the petitioner. Because of the continuous felling of trees the ecological balance is getting disturbed with the result that the rainfall has decreased. The hill people are finding the water supply dwindling inasmuch as in the hill region tube wells or other sources of water are not available and the scanty rains dry down the source of drinking water. Due to indiscriminate cutting of jungles the ecological balance is getting disturbed and persons living in hills apprehend that if this process of jungle cutting continued then staggering problem of drinking water would stare on their face with the result that people are getting scared and are agitated. Hence to prevent the petitioner to cut further jungles and thereby maintain the public peace the detention of the petitioner was necessary. To substantiate the allegation that the petitioner was a potential threat to the maintenance of public order as has been described above, six different activities of the petitioner have been enumerated in support of the grounds of detention. Apart from that a L.I.U. report No. 604 dated 6-8-1992 and certain newspaper reports have also been quoted to support the allegation against the petitioner on the basis of which the District Magistrate said that he was satisfied that the petitioner being a potential threat to the maintenance of public order, his detention was necessary.
3. Sri Murli Dhar learned Counsel for the petitioner has urged that the grounds of detention furnished to the petitioner leave no room to doubt that the petitioner's activity was ultimately to affect the supply of drinking water in the hill region. This problem of non availability of drinking water could be on account of the petitioner cutting the jungles. Learned counsel, therefore, contends that the real object to pass the order of detention against the petitioner was to prevent the petitioner from acting in a manner which would have affected the supply and services essential to the community viz of drinking water. However, the detaining authority instead of mentioning in his order and the grounds of detention that the detention of the petitioner was needed to maintain the supply and services essential to the community says that the petitioner's detention was necessary to prevent him to act in a manner which was prejudicial to the maintenance of public order. This defect in the order of detention, according to learned Counsel for the petitioner, goes to the root of the matter inasmuch as the order neither fulfills the object for which the petitioner is alleged to have been detained, nor does it show due application of mind by the detaining authority to the problem before him which, in turn, demonstrates his casual and mechanical approach on the subject for detaining the petitioner.
4. We have given our anxious consideration to the point which has been raised by learned Counsel for the petitioner. Whereas on the face of it the arguments advanced by the petitioner's learned Counsel is attractive yet if we really go through the entire grounds of detention we find that the stand which has been taken on behalf of the respondents in this case viz. the activity of the petitioner has affected the maintenance of public order, that is also clearly made out by reading the grounds of detention as a whole.
5. A perusal of the grounds of detention as also the activities of the petitioner make it clear that the petitioner is a terror in the area where he operates. It has not been disputed before us that so far as the activity of the petitioner is concerned viz. that he illegally cuts away the jungle and smuggles out the jungle produce from the reserve forest area, it is not possible for the petitioner to contend before this Court that the said activity alleged against him is false. There is enough authority of the Supreme Court to indicate that in a habeas corpus writ petition the truthfulness of the grounds of detention cannot be gone into by a court of law. Therefore, we have to proceed on the basis that the petitioner indulges in cutting the jungles and thereafter illegally smuggling Out its produce from the reserved forest area. What the grounds further say is that the petitioner acts as a gang and he terrorises the employees of the forest Department. It is further mentioned that the petitioner indulges in criminal activities and, people are so afraid of him that they cannot even dare to report against him for the sake of their lives and property. The copy of the L.I.U. report No. 604 dated 6-8-1992 as also the newspaper cuttings which have been furnished to the petitioner along with the grounds of detention clearly mention that the people are concerned with the jungles in the hill region being constantly cut which was agitating the people of that region and if suitable action was not taken by the administration to stop the felling of the trees the people may bring about a stage of confrontation.
6. At one stage we had a doubt that the L.I.U. report which has been annexed with the petition did not mention any such thing inasmuch as apart from L.I.U. report No. 604 dated 6-8-1992 another L.I.U. report No. 576 dated 30-7-1992 had also been furnished to the petitioner and we thought that L.I.U. report No. 576 was the only report which discussed the mood of the people of the locality. However once we went through the contents of the L.I.U. report No. 604 dated 6-8-1992 this confusion got cleared and it can be said without any doubt that these is enough evidence on the record which was furnished to the petitioner to indicate that people of the hill region are really scared and concerned on account of the felling of the jungles by undesired elements.
7. The question that still remains is whether this activity of the petitioner of cutting the jungle comes within the purview of the maintenance of public order Normally if some person stealthly cuts away the jungle and also removes the jungle produce from the reserved area we would have thought that such an act would at the best be attributed in the long span of time only to affect the supply of drinking water in the region, and to allege that such an activity was going to affect the maintenance of public order would be a farfetched conclusion. However, we find that the activity of the petitioner is not confined only to stealthily cutting and removing the jungle goods. The grounds furnished to the petitioner mentioned and make it out in clear terms that the petitioner does not believe in his activity to be carried out stealthily but that he acts openly demonstrating himself as a Mafia Don. The word Mafia is now well understood in the present society. Such persons who do not hesitate to take law in their own hands and do not hesitate to even commit murder of such persons who come up to resist their attempt in illegal activities are known as Mafia Gang operating in a society. Therefore, once the detaining authority has made it absolutely clear in the grounds furnished to the petitioner that due to his activities and modus operandi the people are terrorised and do not muster up courage to speak against them, so that there is no open resistance against his illegal activities, it becomes clear that although the people would wish to stop the petitioner from indulging in illegal activity of cutting and removing the jungle goods, yet they cannot do so for fear of the petitioner. Taking into account this aspect of the activity of the petitioner, it is contended on bnehalf of the respondents that the petitioner's activity has resulted in affecting the even tempo of life of the community, which factor has been always found to be a positive test for a matter affecting the maintenance of public order.
8. In order to check whether the allegation in the ground that the petitioner was operating as a gang and was really posing danger to the people in the locality even if they tried to resist his illegal activity we went through the various circumstances which have been given in the grounds of detention to ascertain whether there are some real material in support of this allegation that the petitioner has created a terror and is threat to the, society. Whereas all the grounds do allege that the petitioner was found to be transporting illegally cut goods of the jungle; in the activity dated 5-1-1992 and activity dated 12-8-1992 we find instances which confirm the suspicion that the petitioner also acts to terrorise the people. In the activity of the 5th , January, 1992 which is enumerated as ground , No. 4 in the grounds of detention it, is mentioned that the petitioner had threatened a person that if he did not help the petitioner and did not provide his truck or refused to give the truck, he would not be left alive and that his truck would also be taken away, moreso as the petitioner was operating in a gang of four and even the police people were afraid of him. In the activity of 12th Aug. 1992 it is mentioned that when a police party tried to apprehend the truck in which the petitioner was taking away the illegally cut jungle produce, the petitioner even dared to fire on a police party with a view to kill them as a result of which the terror was spread in the entire locality, and the people started running and closed their doors and windows which gene-I rated a sense of fear amongst them. Thus we find that there is material also on the record to indicate that the petitioner resorted to attacks and does not even hesitate to fire on the police party in achieving his object to cut away and smuggle out the jungle produce.
9. Thus the record clearly indicates that the petitioner forming a gang not only cuts the jungle in the hill region but also smuggles out the jungle produce. It is further clear that he has created terror amongst the people of that region with the result that no person dares up to protest against him. Undoubtedly the people are scared that the cutting of the jungles in the hill region would, in turn, deprive them of their very source of livelihood i.e. drinking water after the lapse of some time, yet they cannot say so openly because the petitioner and his gang may cause them physical harm. It is in this background that the question examined is whether the petitioner's activity has affected the maintenance of public order? As is well known to come to a conclusion whether any activity affects the public order or not, the question to be examined is whether even tempo of life of the community has been disturbed or not. Once we find, that people are apprehensive that if the illegal cutting of jungle continues it may become impossible for them to live in the hills and yet they find themselves helpless to protest against such activity, we very strongly feel that such a condition could be said to be really disturbing the even tempo of life of the community of the hill region and, therefore, the activity of the petitioner would be clearly, affecting the maintenance of public order. Accordingly we reject the contention of learned Counsel for the petitioner that the object of the detention order dated 17-9-1992 was not to prevent the petitioner from acting in a manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order.
10. Sri Murlidhar learned Counsel for the petitioner in the alternative argued before us that even if the petitioner had established himself to be a terror in the locality and was indulging in smuggling out the trees illegally cut by him from the jungle, it could not be said that he was affecting the even tempo of the life of the community unless he had directed his activities towards the people of the society as, such. According to him the actions of the petitioner threatening or terrorising a person or two cannot mean that the people at large are scared and they, in any manner, are affected by the petitioner's activities. Learned counsel for the petitioner drew analogy of a Mafia Don who operates in a society and contended that although there are Mafia Dons almost in every city and towns and they do operate in their own areas yet according to him it is not possible to say that the activities of such Mafia Dons would be considered to be calculated to affect the maintenance of public order. Since we are not dealing with a case of Mafia Don who operates in any particular city or town yet we find that the analogy adopted by the learned Counsel for the petitioner can hardly help him because if a Mafia Don is arrested and detained for affecting the maintenance of public order, we hardly find any justification to agree with the contention that activity of even a Mafia Don would not be affecting maintenance of public order. Therefore, this contention of learned Counsel for the petitioner is devoid of merit and has to be rejected. No other point has been argued before us.
11. This petition, therefore, fails and is dismissed.