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Pramod Singla vs Union of India & Ors. (2023) [Crl.A. No. 1051 of 2023, arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 10798 of 2022]

Criminal Appeal · 2023 INSC 344Decided 10 Apr 2023
Criminal Appeal No. 1051 of 2023
Krishna Murari · V. Ramasubramanian

Background

The appellant was arrested after Indian customs intelligence (DRI) found gold smuggled from abroad, with a portion recovered from his shop; he was granted regular bail by the magistrate, but the government later passed a preventive detention order against him under the COFEPOSA Act. He challenged the detention order before the Delhi High Court on grounds including a 60-day delay by the Central Government in deciding his representation and the supply of illegible Chinese-language documents relied on to detain him. The High Court dismissed his petition, and he appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Court examined whether there was a conflict between two lines of Constitution Bench precedent (one requiring the government to decide independently of the Advisory Board, another allowing it to wait for the Board's opinion) and held there is no real conflict: the detaining officer must act independently and swiftly, while the Central Government (a separate authority) may lawfully wait for the Advisory Board's report before deciding. On that basis, the 60-day delay by the Government was not itself illegal. However, the Court found in the appellant's favour on the third issue: he had been supplied illegible documents in Chinese as part of the grounds for detention, denying him a meaningful opportunity to make a representation, and a similarly placed co-detenu had already had his detention order quashed on the identical ground, so the principle of parity required the same relief for the appellant. The detention order was set aside and the appeal allowed (the appellant had, in any event, already been released as his detention period had expired, but the Court still ruled on the point of law).

Lesson Learnt

In preventive detention cases, courts read every procedural safeguard, including the right to understand the material used to justify one's detention, strictly in favour of the detained person; being handed documents in a language you cannot read to justify your own detention is, by itself, enough to have the order struck down.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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