The Hindu : SC quashes T.N. Govt. detention order

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 24, 2002

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SC quashes T.N. Govt. detention order

By T. Padmanabha Rao

NEW DELHI MARCH 23. "An order of preventive detention is founded on a reasonable prognosis of the future behaviour of a person based on his past conduct judged in the light of the surrounding circumstances — such past conduct may consist of one single act or of a series of acts and it must be of such a nature that an inference can reasonably be drawn from it that the person concerned would be likely to repeat such acts so as to warrant his detention,'' the Supreme Court has reiterated.

The Bench comprising M.B. Shah and Doraiswamy Raju, through two separate but concurring judgments, quashed an order of detention dated May 28 last made by the Tamil Nadu Government against the petitioner, an engineering graduate and managing director of an infotech firm at the relevant time in Hyderabad, under Section 3(1) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (COFEPOSA).

According to the grounds of detention, foreign-made cell phones with accessories of the value of Rs. 13,90,000 were recovered from the petitioner by Customs officials on his arrival from Singapore at the Chennai airport on March 30 last. The petitioner's plea was that the baggage having "admittedly no tags" did not belong to him and that there was nothing on record that the petitioner was involved in any smuggling activity. It was also urged that the other specified passenger travelling with the petitioner and whose baggage was mixed up with that of the petitioner, was served with the summons by the authorities against whom the investigation was still pending. The "baggage tickets" were reportedly registered in the name of the other passenger. The Bench directed that "the petitioner be released forthwith, if not required in any other case."

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