HAMIDA SARFARAZ QUREISHI versus M. S. KASBEKAR & OTHERS

Citation: [1981] 1 S.C.R. 691 · Decided: 11-09-1980 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: R.S. SARKARIA · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed

Judgment (excerpt)

• ' 
HAMIDA SARFARAZ QUREISHI 
v. 
M. S. KASBEKAR & OTHERS 
September 11, 1980 
(R. S. SARKARIA AND 0. CHINNAPPA REDDY, JJ.] 
Right to be heard-Prevention of Black-Marketing and Maintenance Of 
Supplies of Essential Commodities Act, 1980 (Act 7 of 1980) Section 1 l(a) read 
with clause 4(a) of Article 22 of the Constitution-Detenu seriously disabled and 
hospitalised in the Intensive Care Unit-Notice of the meeting of the Advisory 
Board meeting given an hour or two earlier to the scheduled meeting and that 
too to the detenu's wife in the hospital-The so-called opportunity of being hnlll'd 
was a farce and amounted to a negation of the statutory right. 
Allowing the petition, the Court 
HELD : The so-called opportunity of being heard in person by the Advisory 
Board was a farce, and amounted to a negation of the right conferred on the 
detenu under Section 11(1) of the Prevention of Blackmarketing and Mainte-
nance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act, 1980. [693FJ. 
Under Section 11(1) .of the PREBLACT, the authority concerned was pe-
remptorily required to afford to the detenu a proper opportunity to be heard 
in 
persoll 
by 
the 
Advisory 
Board. 
Such 
an 
opportunity 
was 
not 
given · to the detenu, here, despite request. No reasonable notice about 
the 
date 
of 
meeting 
of 
the 
Advisory 
Board 
was 
given 
to the 
detenu. 
It was only about one or two hours before the scheduled time 
of the meeting of the Board that a police officer went to the hospital, in which 
the detenu was confined, to inform about the meeting of the Board. 
Even 
that information was given only to the wife of the detenu for further trans-
mission to the detenu who was then precariously ill and disabled from doing 
anything. 
In such circumstance, the 'respondents' argument that the detenu 
should have. asked for extension of time is devoid .of merit. [693D-E, G]. 
ORIGINAL JURISDICTION : Writ Petition No. 3403 of 1980. 
Under Article 32 of the Constitution. 
Ram Jethmalani, and Mis~ Rani Jethmalani for the Petitioner_ 
P. R. Mrldul, M. M. Abdul Khader and M. N. Shroff for tlie 
Respondents. 
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by 
SARKARIA, J.-This is a petition for issue 'Of a writ of habe.as 
corpus. 
The petitioner is the wife of the detenu, Sarfaraz Maqbool 
Qureishi who has been detained under Section 3 of the Preventfon of 
Blackmarketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commo-
dities Act, 1980 (Act 7 of 1980) (for short, called PREBLACT). 
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SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
[1981] 1 S.C.R. 
The order was issued by the Commissioner of Police, Bombay on 
May 28, 1980. It was served on the detenu on May 29, 1980 when, 
according to the averments in the writ petition, he was an indoor 
patient in the St, George Hospital, Lucknow, struggling for his life, 
due to a massive heart attack. 
The grounds of detention were also 
suppiled to him on the same day. 
The detenu is a dealer in kerosene. 
Mr. Jethmalani, appearing for the petitioner, has canvassed 
five points before us. 
The first point is that a represerttation dated 
June 27, 1980 was addressed to the detaining authority, Commis-
sioner .of Police, Bombay, but the latter refused to consider the same 
and this amounts to an infringement of the constitutional obligation 
implied under Article 22(5) of the Constitution as well as Section 
4 of the Act. The second point urged by the learned counsel is that 
the detenu had irt his representation, 
expressed a desire that he be 
heard in person by the Advisory Board; that. this right was denied 
to him, in as much as on the day on which the Advisory Board was 
to hold its meeting, a police officer at about 1 p.m. came to the 
.Prince Ali Khan Hospital, and informed the detenu's wife that the 
detenu could appear before the Advisory Board in the afternoon that 
the detenu was the,n in the Intensive Care Unit of the Hospital struggl-
ing to survive from a massive heart attack, and, as such, incapable 
Qf moving out and appearing before the Board. It is stressed that the 
detenu was in such a disabled condition that he could not even com-
·municate with anybody. 
We will fake up the second point first, because the petition can 
be disposed of on this very ground. 
Clause ( 4 )(a) of Article 22 of the Constitution mandates that 
no law providing for preventive detention shall authorise the deten-
tion of a person for a longer period than three months, unless an 
Advisory Boar

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