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TMI Blog1974 (2) TMI 76X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ear S. S. P.) and 2 Nos, feed and transformer from the junction box near Signal No, 35 on the said place. The value of the stolen property is valued at ₹ 600/-. Your action caused disruption of train service for a considerable time affecting supplies and services. You have thus acted in a manner prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and service essential to the community. 2. In contrast to this sole episode on the basis of which the detention order - as its recital runs - is based, we have the affidavit of the District Magistrate which states: I further state that it appears from the Records that detenu-petitioner is one of the notorious stealers of Railway Stores mainly operating in Dum Dum Railway yard. It appears t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 1679 etc. of 1078 D/- 1-2-1974 : and Bhut Nath v. State of West Bengal W. P. No. 1456 of 1973, D/- 8-2-1974, reported in AIR 1974 SC 808 Counsel contended that the ratio in these cases applied to the present instance of detention and the detenu was therefore, entitled to be enlarged In W. P. Nos. 1679 etc of 1973, D/- 1-2-1974 : , Sarkaria, J, observed: In the counter affidavit, the Deputy Secretary has inter alia stated that the petitioner is a Veteran copper wire stealer and there were reliable in formations before She District Magistrate about his anti-social activities prejudicial to the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community. Veteran copper wire stealer implies a long course of repetitive thievery of c ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... pplies and services essential to the community. In this context, we have to remember that the Parliament, whether we like it or not, has in its wisdom entrusted the extra ordinary power to imprison a citizen based, on the subjective satisfaction of government or other officer specified in the statute with a view to inhibit pre judicial activities of the type mentioned the statute. This is a measure of social defense which Is a break with the basics of criminal jurisprudence. But the law of preventive detention is a different field of criminology which has its own guidelines, and we have to go by them without telescoping into them what a criminal Court expects in a trial of an accused brought before it. The key fact at the core of the statut ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the statute, no nexus exists and the order in bad. Even if the incident attributed to the detenu has some connection with the obnoxious activities., it should not be too trivial in substance nor too stale in point of time as to snap the rational link that. must exist between the vicious episode and the prejudicial activity sought to be interdicted. In the present ease we take the view that the ground given Is neither too distant nor too trifling to strain judicial credulity to breaking point; on the contrary it is proximate and pernicious, if true. 6. The only serious submission that merits consideration is whether the injurious activity imputed by the authority to the petitioner, as disclosed in the affidavit in opposition filed by the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tion of the petitioner as a notorious stealer and reference to his activities imply a course of conduct and not isolated act, and this stream of activity has fertilised or polluted the magistrates mind but has not been furnished to the detenu. In this context the observations of Sarkaria, J already adverted were emphasized . But we take the we that an imaginative appreciation of the circumstance of the present case as disclosed it the affidavit and the grounds communicated, marks it off as a separate category from Shaik Hanif, W. P. No. 1679 etc., of I978, D/- 1-2-1974 : . The latter has but miniaturised the former. 7. True it Is that the ground furnished speaks of a conjoint act of theft of signal materials, feed and transformers, from ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... t but a long course of activity in the laboratory in ceaseless effort to develop this great scientific marvel. No one can reasonably say that when a Nobel prize winner is complimented for the act of splitting the atom we are wrong in reading into that act a tremendous and intense striving and technological equipment by the scientist. Like-WISH, the very proficiency and daring displaced by the petitioner, with his associates, in doing what he did, amounts to the attribution of a series of activities more fully put down in para 8 of the District Magistrate's affidavit. We agree that this expansive interpretation is permissible only in exceptionally plain cases. It follows that there is hardly any substance in the contention of in sufficie ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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