TMI Blog1952 (5) TMI 12X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... m. - Petitions (Nos. 86, 147, and 155 of 1952) - - - Dated:- 26-5-1952 - BOSE, VIVIAN, SASTRI, M. PATANJALI (CJ), MAHAJAN, MEHR CHAND, MUKHERJEA, B.K. And DAS, SUDHI RANJAN,JJ. Rajani Patel for the Petitioner R. Ganapathi Iyer for the Respondent JUDGMENT The Judgment of the Court was delivered by BOSE J.--This petition and three others, namely petitions Nos. 147, 155 and 157 of 1952, raise issues regarding the vires and applicability to these cases of section 3 of the Preventive Detention (Amendment) Act, 1952. This judgment is confined to those points and will govern these cases only in so far as they raise those points. The remaining points which do not touch these issues will be dealt with by another Bench. The only exception is a point raised in petition No. 155 of 1952 with which the other petitions are not concerned. We will deal with that separately. The present petition (No. 86 of 1952) was argued very ably and with commendable conciseness by the petitioner in person. The fact that he has not been able to persuade us to his view is not due to any defect in his presentation of the case. The petitioner was arrested on the 15th of November, 1951, and an ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... or the duration or until the expiry of the principal Act or until the 31st day of March, 1952, such detention order shall continue to remain in force for so long as the principal Act is in force, but without prejudice to the power of the appropriate Government to revoke or modify it at any time." It will be noticed that the concluding part of this section states that the detention order shall remain in force "for so long as the principal Act is in force." Section 2 of the amending Act defines the "principal Act" to mean the Act of 1950. Therefore, it was argued, as the Act of 1950 was due to expire on the 1st of April, 1952, the present detention also came to an end on that date and so, in the absence of a fresh order of detention, the petitioner's detention after that date was illegal. This argument, though ingenious, is fallacious. The construction of an Act which has been amended is now governed by technical rules and we mast first be clear regarding the proper canons of construction. The rule is that when a subsequent Act amends an earlier one in such a way as to incorporate itself, or a part of itself, into the earlier, then the earlier Act must thereafter be read and constr ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... is were to be read literally it would lead to an absurdity, for if the order is actually confirmed under the original unamended Act it would be pointless to introduce a fiction and say that the order shall be deemed to be con- firmed under that Act as unamended. But even apart from a strictly technical construction, the language of the section is accurate because, as wehave said, the rule is that an amended Act must be read as if the words of amendment had been written into the Act except where that would lead to an inconsistency, and this would be one of those cases unless the words are construed in a sensible and commonsense way. The draughtsman there- fore had either to leave the words as they were, with an apparent inconsistency, or make his meaning clear by adding the words he did. But we do not think the addition made any difference to the result. We now turn to the second half of section 3, that is to say, to the words following the semi-co]on. It is important to note here that this part is consequential on the first and merely explains the effect of the first half. It is also relevant to note that it deals with four different kinds of orders, different, that is to say, in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... etation of Statutes, 9th edition, page 236, and Craies on Statute Law, 5th edition, pages 89 to 93. The meaning of section 3 is quite plain and only desperate hair splitting can reduce it to an absurdity. Courts should not be astute to defeat the provisions of an Act whose meaning is, on the face of it, reasonably plain. Of course, this does not mean that an Act, or any part of it, can be recast. It must be possible to spell the meaning contended for out of the words actually used. We hold that there is no difficulty of construction. It was next argued that in any event the extended deten- tion became a fresh detention (because of the Act of 1952) from the date the Act came into force, and reliance was placed upon the judgments of two of us, Mahajan and Das JJ. in S. Krishnan v. The State of Madras ([1951] S.C.R. 621 at 635 and 640). It is enough to say that was not the decision of the Court in that case, and further, that the two Judges who held it was a fresh detention nevertheless considered that a fresh order with its concomitant fresh grounds and a fresh reference to the Advisory Board were not required; therefore, either way the petitioner must fail. Reference was made to t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... stops there, is only to make a partial statement of the effect of section 3 because the extension is subject to the power of the appropriate Government to revoke or modify it at any time. In other words, the automatic continuation of the detention till the 1st of October is not absolute and irrevocable but is made dependent on the power of the appropriate Government to revoke or modify it at its discretion under section 13 of the Act. The State may or may not continue the detention for the whole of the extended period. In both classes of cases the duration the detention within the overall limit of the life of the Act is left to the discretion of the State. The only difference is that in the one class of cases the discretion is exercised after the period has been extended by the amending Act, in the other the appropriate Government fixes the period itself in its discretion and can again at its discretion revoke or modify it. In both cases, the substance of the law is that the period of detention is left to the discretion of the State, and so there is no substantial discrimination. It was argued that however fair this may look on paper, in practice there will be grave discrimination ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ably plain and we hold that Parliament can prescribe the maximum for a class taken as a whole as it has done in section 3. It was next argued that once the power given under clause (7) to fix a maximum period has been exercised the power exhausts itself and cannot be exercised again in respect of the same detention. In our opinion, no such limitation is imposed upon Parliament by the Constitution. Then it was said that section 3 stands on a footing different from section 12 of the amending Act of 1951 as it introduces the idea of potentially indefinite detention and accordingly is repugnant to the Constitution, and in any event is a fraud upon it. In so far as this means that section a fixes no time limit, the contention is unsound because the section specifies the exact period of the deten- tion, namely till the expiry of the Act of 1950, that is to say, till the 1st of October, 1952. In so far as it means that Parliament is enabled to continue detentions indefi- nitely by the expedient of periodic amendments in the Act of 1950, the answer is that Parliament has the power. This was precisely the power exercised in the amending Act of 1951 and upheld by this Court in S. Krishnan ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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