BHOPAL CHANDRA GHOSH versus ARIF ALI AND OTHERS

Citation: [1974] 2 S.C.R. 277 · Decided: 15-11-1973 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: S.N. DWIVEDI · Disposal: Case Allowed

Cited by 1 judgment(s) · cites 2 · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

A 
B 
c 
D 
E 
F 
.G 
B 
'•. 
BHOPAL CHANDRA GHOSH 
v. 
ARIF ALI AND OTHERS 
November 15, 1973 
277 
[S. N. DWIVEDI, Y. v. CHANDRACHUD AND P. K. Gosw~; JJ.]. 
Ataintenance of Internal Securiiy Act, 1971-S. 3(2) read ·;,;iJJI 's'e~tt~'n. ; 3, 
C 1) (a) (ii)-"Maintena11ce of Public Order"-Some of the growuU have M rela· 
lion to public order-Order of detention if vitiated. 
. 
· 
fhe p~titioner was detained under s. 3(2) read with a. 3(1)(~)(;.i)··~f·-·tho · 
A.faintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971 with. a view to preventhia him from. 
actin& in any manner prejudicial to the ''maintenance of public order"'.- ln one 
of the grounds it was stated that the petitioner .. posed _a serious threat to the 
security of the State and the maintenance of public order:• The·DCtitioner con• 
tended that the order of detention was bad· because some of the grounds had 
no relevance to public order. 
· · 
. 
Allowing the petition, 
. HELD: (1) The order of detention· was invalid. Five out of ·16 grolHld.1 
.are not shown to have any rational relation with public ordet. 
SO.Dlcl of them 
may perhaps have some connection with "law and order". But it has been.held 
in a series of decisions of this Court that the concept of law and order is DOt 
identical with the concept of public Order. ·Public order is an aggravated form 
of disturbance of public peace. It affects the general current of public life. 
The detention order was passed on the subjective satisfaction of the . detaitllng 
authority and it was not possible to assess how far these five. grounds bad 
swayed the mind of the District ]..fagistrate and tilted ·his judgment against the 
detenu. To the intertwinin% of relevant and irrelevant .erounds of detention 
the rule of severalty would not apply and the whole order of detention would 
fall down. 
[279B.C) 
State of Bomba.Y v. Atma Ram Sridluzr Vaidya [1951] S.C.R. 167, 
distin~ 
&Uished .. 
(2) The detention order was passed in order to prevent the petitioner from 
acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order. It was 
not made with a view to preventing him from acting prejudicially to the aecmity 
of the State. But in the grounds of detention the District Magistrate ~pecitlcally 
relied on security of State, 
A conjoint reading of the detention order· and the 
grounds of detention was suggestive of the inference that the District :h.iagistrate 
had either· no information of the grounds relevant to the .security of the State 
at the time of jthe passin&' of the detention order, or tha4 it he had illf'ormation 
of those grounds, he did not believe them to be factually correct and accord-·: 
ingly did not bottom· bis detention order on the..m. 
In the first event. he could 
not now seek 1to buttress his detention order by those grounds, becausQ the 
detention order was made for the maintenance of public order only; in the aecond 
event also, those ,trounds &bould be totally ignored. If he did not think lt proper 
to rely on them while making the detention order, he could not deploy them 
at a later date as another string to the bow. There is a difference between public 
order and security of the State. Every breach of public_ order will not neces· 
sarily atrect the security of the State. [279F-G] 
· 
· Dr. Ram J.,fanohar Lohia v. State of Bihar, [19'6] 1 S.C.R. -109 at· page 
746, Shibhan La.I Saxena v. The State c: Uttar Prtuksh, (1954) S.C.R. 411, 
at p. 422, Motilal Jain v. State of Bihtir, [1968] 3 S.C.R. 587 . at p. '$93 
Pushkar Mukherjee v. The State of West Bengal, [1969) 2 S.C.R. 635 A.nan.ta 
Mukhl & Ananta Hari .v. State of West Bengal, [1972} 3 S.C.R. 379 and 
Masood Alam v. Union of India, A.l.R. 1973 S.C. 897, refemd to. 
.... ORIGINAL WR.tr JURISDICTION : Writ Petition No. 1520 of 1973.: . 
.. 
Under Article 32 of the cOOstitution for issue of a Writ in the nature, ' 
. ,of bahcas corp~· 
' 
278 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
D. N. Mukherji and Rathin Das for the petitioner. 
S. N. Chaudhury, for the respondents. 
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by 
[ 1974] 2 s.c.&. 
A 
DWIVEDI, J. 
It is a petition for a writ in the nature of habeas 
corpus under Art. 32 of the Constitution. 
The petitioner alleges that 
he.is the acting President of the Council of the Displaced Bengalees 
B 
hvmg in the State of Assam .. On April 2, 1973, the District Magistrate 
Sibasagar, Jorhat, in the said State, passed an order under s. 3(2) read 
withs. 3(1) (a)(ii) of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 19

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