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The State of Manipur & Ors. vs. Buyamayum Abdul Hanan @ Anand & Anr.

Criminal Appeal · 2022 INSC 1117Decided 19 Oct 2022
Criminal Appeal No. 1819 of 2022
Ajay Rastogi · C.T. Ravikumar

Background

The respondent was preventively detained by the Manipur government under the PITNDPS Act, based on an order of detention and grounds of detention. He challenged the detention before the Manipur High Court, arguing he was not supplied legible copies of the documents relied upon by the detaining authority, which prevented him from making an effective representation against his detention. The High Court agreed and set aside the detention order; by then his one-year detention period had also expired. The State of Manipur appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the right to make an effective representation against a preventive detention order is a fundamental right under Article 22(5) of the Constitution, and this necessarily requires that the detenu be supplied with legible copies of the documents relied upon by the detaining authority. Since the State did not actually deny, in its counter before the High Court, that the copies supplied were illegible, this fact stood uncontroverted. The Court rejected the State's argument that the detenu had forfeited this objection by not first raising it before the detaining authority itself, holding that personal liberty cannot be curtailed except strictly by the procedure prescribed by law. It accordingly upheld the High Court's decision and dismissed the State's appeals.

Lesson Learnt

When the government detains someone preventively, it must give that person clear, legible copies of the material used against them: an illegible or incomplete disclosure can, by itself, make the detention illegal, because it defeats the constitutional right to meaningfully challenge one's own detention.

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

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