Judicial discipline – Principles of – Detention orders u/s. 3 of COFEPOSA against the detenue and three co-accused persons for the alleged seizure of contraband gold and arrested thereafter – Division Bench of the High Court dismissed the Writ Petition filed by the detenue’s sister-in-law challenging the detention order as well as the confirmation of detention on the ground of non-supply of relevant documents and thus, sought release of the detenue, when the coordinate Bench of the same High Court had allowed the writ petitions filed by the co-accused persons challenging the same detention order holding that documents sought had been relied upon in the detention orders and the same ought to have been furnished to the detenus when they requested for the same, thus, the non-supply had vitally affected the right of the detenus and the detention order was bad – Correctness:
Held: Division Bench of the High Court while passing the impugned judgment and order should have followed the view taken by another Division Bench of the same High Court specifically when the grounds of detention and the grounds of challenge were identical in both the cases – In the event, the Division Bench of the High Court was of the view that the earlier decision of the Coordinate Bench of the same High Court was not correct in law, the only option available to it was to refer the matter to a larger Bench – Division Bench of the High Court in the while rejecting the case of the detenue, observed that the detaining authority had arrived at a subjective satisfaction on the basis of various documents and that nonsupply of the WhatsApp chats would not vitiate the detention order, thus, held that the findings of the Coordinate Bench of the same High Court in the cases of the co-accused could not be followed in the instant case – When the Coordinate Bench of the same High Court based on same grounds of detention and on the basis of the same material, which was relied on by the detaining authority, had come to a considered conclusion that non-supply of certain documents had vitiated the right to make an effective representation of the detenus, another Coordinate Bench could not have ignored the same – Second Division Bench has sought to justify its decision by holding that the findings in the cases of co-accused and other connected matters would not be applicable to it since the detaining authority had also taken into consideration the other material while arriving at its subjective satisfaction – However, it is to be noted that if that was so in the case of present detenue, that was also so in the cases of other detenus – Thus, the detention order as also order of confirmation of detention order quashed and set aside – Conservation of Foreign Exchange & Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974. [Paras 12, 15-18]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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