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PETITIONER: KUSO SAH

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: THE STATE OF BIHAR & ORS.

DATE OF JUDGMENT08/11/1973

BENCH: CHANDRACHUD, Y.V. BENCH: CHANDRACHUD, Y.V. DWIVEDI, S.N. GOSWAMI, P.K.

CITATION:  1974 AIR  156            1974 SCR  (2) 195  1974 SCC  (1) 185  CITATOR INFO :  RF         1975 SC1215  (5)  R          1987 SC 998  (6)

ACT: Constitution  of  India  Art.  32-Habeas   Corpus-Petitioner detained  for two reasons : maintenance of public order  and maintenance  of essential supplies and services-Two  out  of three  grounds in respect of first reason found  irrelevant- Held entire order of detention is illegal as the two reasons cannot be bifurcated.

HEADNOTE: The  petitioner  was  detained  pursuant  to  an  order   of detention  dated  April  2  1973  passed  by  the   District Magistrate,   Monghyr,  with  a  view  to   preventing   the petitioner  from  "acting in any manner prejudicial  to  the maintenance of public order and the maintenance’ of supplies and  services  essential to the community." The  grounds  of detention  served on the petitioner on April 6,  1973‘  were divided  into two parts, the first relating to public  order and the second to essential supplies and services.  Two  out of  the  three grounds mentioned in the first part  set  out facts  which referred respectively to a stray incident on  a public  street  and an assault on a  public.  servant.   The petitioners  challenged the order of detention by  a  habeas corpus petition in this Court. Allowing the Petition, HELD  :  (1) The two concepts law and  order’  ’and  ’public order’  have well defined contours.  Stray  and  unorganised crimes of theft and assault are not matters of public  order since  they  do not fend to affect the even flow  of  public life.   Infractions of law we bound in some measure to  lead to disorder but every infraction of law does not necessarily result  in  public disorder.  "Law and order  comprehends  & orders of less gravity than these affecting "public  order", just as public order, comprehends disorders of less  gravity than those affecting "security of State.    [196G] Pushkar  Mukherjee  and others v. The State of  West  Bengal [1969] 2 S.C.R. 635, 642 and Dr. Ram Manoher Lohia v., State of Bihar and Others [1966] 1 S.C.R. 709, 746. referred to. (2)Two of the grounds on which the order of detention  rests

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bear  no  rational connection with "public  order",  in  the interests   of  which  the  petitioner was  ordered  to  be detained.   The order of detention expressly states that  it was passed with a view to preventing the petitioner    from. acting  in  a  manner   prejudicial to  the  maintenance  of public  order  and the maintenance of supplies  and  service essential to the community, and the District Magistrate  was satisfied   that if the petitioner was allowed to remain  at large  he  will indulge in activities   prejudicial  to  the maintenance of public order and   maintence of supplies  and services  essential  to  the  community.   The  two  reasons maintenance of public order and maintenance of supplies  and services  essential  to the community  cannot  therefore  be bifurcated  and  considered in  separate  compartments.  The subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority  embraces both  the  reasons and since two out of  the  three  grounds mentioned in the first part are irrelevant, the entire order is illegal. [179D, 198D] Pushkar Mukherjee & Ors.  V, The State of West Bengal [1969] 2 S.C.R. 635, 642 and Motilal Jain v. State of Bihar &  Ors. [1968] 3 S.C.R, 587, 593, referred to.

JUDGMENT: ORlGINAL JURISDICTION : Writ Petition No. 1607 of. 1973. Under.Article 32 of the Constitution for issue of a Writ  in the  nature of habeas corpus. 196 P. K. Chatterjee and Rathin Das, for the petitioner. K.   K. Sinha and S. K. Sinha for the, respondents. The  Judgment of the Court was delivered by CHANDRACHUD    J.-By this petition for the,  writ  of  ha as corpus,  the  petitioner challenges an  order  of  detention dated  April  2,  1973 passed by  the  District  Magistrate, Monghyr  with  a  view to  preventing  the  petitioner  from "acting  in  any manner prejudicial to  the  maintenance  of public  order and the maintenance of supplies  and  services essential to the community The  grounds of detention served on the petitioner on  April 6, 1973 are divided into two parts, the first part referring to  acts prejudicial to the maintenance of public order  and the  second  to  those prejudicial  to  the  maintenance  of supplies and services essential to the community. Two  out  of the three grounds mentioned in the  first  part read thus               "(b)  On 20-1-71 at about 2 A.M. he  and his               brother,  Garib  Sao were leading  two  trucks               with stolen Railway property in a car  bearing               No.  WBJ 6949.  On the railway  crossing  near               Jamui Rly.  Station other,, standing trucks on               the  road caused a bottleneck in  his  hurried               journey.   This  led to a clash  and  his  men               assaulted  the  truck drivers  and  threatened               them with fire arms.  Some 15 of his Men  were               arrested then an( there by the Police with the               help of the public while he managed to  escape               along with his brother in the, car bearing No.               WBJ 6948.  This car is registered in the  name               of   his  brother  Rabig  Sao.   A  case   was               registered in this connection vide  Lakshmipur               P.S. Case No. 9 (1) 71 dated 20-1-71.               (c)He  assaulted  Shri Ram  Singhasan  Rai,               Asst.  Suptd.  Commercial Taxes,  Intelligence               Branch, Bhagalpur who had gone to his  factory

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             in  course of his duties and discharge of  his               legal obligations as Asst.  Suptd.  Commercial               Taxes  Intelligence Branch and  in  connection               therewith  he has been arrested.  in  Jamalpur               P.S.  case No. 21 dated 29-8-72 u/s 143,  333,               307, 325 etc.  I.P.C." These  acts may raise problems of law and order but we  find it impossible to see their impact on public order.  The  two concepts   have  well  defined  contours,  it   being   well Established  that stray and unorganised crimes of theft  and assault  are not matters of public order since they  do  not tend to affect the even flow of public life.  Infractions of law are bound in some measure to lead to disorder but  every infraction  of  law does not necessarily  result  in  public disorder.   As observed in Pushkar Mukherjee &.Ors.  v.  The State of West Bengal(1), a line of demarcation must be drawn between  serious  and  aggravated forms  of  disorder  which directly affect the community or injure the public  interest and the relatively minor breaches of peace of a purely local signi- (1)[1969] 2 S.C.R. 635, 642. 197 ficance which primarily injure specific individuals and only in  a secondary sense public interest.  ’In Dr. Ram  Manohar Lohia  v. State of Bihar and, Ors.,(1) Hidayatullah, J.  has expressed this concept picturesquely by saying that one  has to   imagine  three  concentric  circles;  law   and   order represents  the  largest  circle within which  is  the  next circle  representing  public order and the  smallest  circle represents   the  security  of  State.   "Law  and   Order". comprehends  disorders of less gravity than those  affecting "public order", just as "public order" comprehends disorders of less gravity than those affecting "security of State". The  facts set out in ground (b) of the first part refer  to no  more  than a stray and simple fracas arising  out  of  a traffic  bottleneck  on a public street.  Those set  out  in ground  (1)  refer  to  an  assault  on  a  public  servant, undoubtedly reprehensible if true, but not of the kind  that would reasonably affect public order. Thus,  two  of the grounds on which the order  of  detention rests  bear no rational connection with "public  order",  in the  interests  of which the petitioner was  ordered  to  be detained.  This Court in Pushkar Mukherjee’s case observed : "that  it  is  well  established  that  the   constitutional requirement  that  the  grounds must not be  vague  must  be satisfied  with  regard  to each of  the  grounds......  and therefore even if one ground is vague. and the other grounds are  not  vague,  the detention is not  in  accordance  with procedures established by law and is therefore illegal.  The power  to detain a person without the safeguard of  a  court trial  is too drastic to permit a lenient  construction  and therefore courts must be astute to ensure that the detaining authority  does  not transgress the limitations  subject  to which alone the power can be exercised.  In Motilal Jain  v. State  of  Bihar  &  OrS.(2)  this  Court  observed  :  "the subjective  satisfaction of the detaining authority must  be properly based on all the reasons on which it purports to be based.   If some out of those reasons are found to  be  non- existent or irrelevant, the court cannot predicate what  the subjective satisfaction of the authority would have been  on the exclusion of those reasons.  To uphold the order on  the remaining  reasons  would  be to  substitute  the  objective standards  of the court for the subjective  satisfaction  of the authority." The  order of detention expressly states that it was  passed

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with  a  view to preventing the petitioner from acing  in  a manner  prejudicial to the maintenance of public  order  and the  maintenance of supplies and services essential  to  the community.  The statement of grounds contains at the end the assertion that the District Magistrate was satisfied that if the  petitioner  was  allowed to remain  at  large  he  will indulge in acti- (1)  [1966] 1 S.C.R. 709, 746. (2)  [1968] 3 S. C. R. 587, 593. 198 vities  prejudicial to the maintenance of public  order  and supplies and services essential to the community.  (emphasis supplied).  The two reasons, maintenance of public order and maintenance  of  supplies  and services  essential  to  the, community, cannot therefore be bifurcated and considered  in separate  compartments.  The subjective satisfaction of  the detaining authority embraces both the reasons and since  two out  of  the three grounds mentioned in the first  part  are irrelevant, the entire order is illegal. For  these reason I s we set aside the order  of  detention. We  had earlier directed on the conclusion of the  arguments that the petitioner be set at liberty forthwith. S.B.W.                   Petition allowed- 199