TMI Blog1981 (1) TMI 276X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ay. The High Court allowed the Writ Petition mainly on the ground that, as one of the grounds, namely, ground No. 7 was irrelevant, the entire order of detention is vitiated. In coming to this finding, the High Court, has put, in our opinion, a wrong interpretation on Sec. 5(A) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). Section 5A reads thus : 5A. Grounds of detention severable.- Where a person has been detained in pursuance of an order of detention under sub-section (1) of section 3 which has been made on two or more grounds, such order of detention shall be deemed to have been made separately on each of such grounds and accordingly (a) such order shall ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... vers several activities each forming a separate ground of detention and the Act deals with no other act except smuggling. Indeed, if the interpretation of the High Court in respect of Sec. 5(A) is accepted, then Sec. 5A will become otiose. While construing section 5(A) the High Court observed thus : But in the present case the subjective satisfaction is based on one ground, that is, for preventing the present petitioner from smuggling goods and in support of that ground various statements have been relied upon and the totality of consideration of all these statements has resulted in the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority when it passed the impugned order of detention. Now for these totality of circumstances considered by th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... itself and if one of the grounds is irrelevant, vague or unspecific, then that will not vitiate the order of detention. The reason for enacting Sec. 5(A) was the fact that several High Courts took the view that where several grounds are mentioned in an order of detention and one of them is found to be either vague or irrelevant then the entire order is vitiated because it cannot be predicted to what extent the subjective satisfaction of the authority could have been influenced by the vague or irrelevant ground. It was to displace the basis of these decisions that the Parliament enacted Sec. 5(A) in order to make it clear that even if one of the grounds is irrelevant but the other grounds are clear and specific that by itself would not viti ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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