The Delhi High Court held that the detention order cannot be quashed for mere delay in Execution.
The petitioner, Harmeet Singh assailed the Detention Order issued against the petitioner by Respondent, Joint Secretary, COFEPOSA, Government of India under Section 3(1) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (COFEPOSA).
The Respondent Authorities have not been able to execute the Detention Order prior to, and even after filing of the present writ petition. The Petitioner has, thus, not yet been served with either the Detention Order, or the Grounds of Detention, or the Relied upon Documents.
Mr. Siddharth Aggarwal, the counsel on behalf of the petitioner urged that the impugned Detention Order was issued after an inordinate delay of 1 year and 4 months, or about 490 Days, and that this long delay is fatal to the Detention Order.
The contraband items found in the petitioner’s belongings were seized on the intervening night of 1st and 2nd February 2019, whereas the present Detention Order was issued only on 5th June 2020.
The initial proposal for detention of the petitioner was sent to the Joint Secretary, COFEPOSA on 25th February 2019. That proposal was not accepted, as the materials placed by the Sponsoring Authority were not found to be sufficient to justify the petitioner’s preventive detention. It is argued that the delay in the passing of a Detention Order is fatal to the consequent detention, as the nexus/ live link between the prejudicial activity and the purpose of detention snapped due to the delay which in this case, is more than 16 months.
On the other hand, the Respondents have defended their action, and it is contended that there is no delay in either sending the fresh proposal for detention in January 2020, or in its consideration.
The division bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar relied on the recent decision in the case of Mohd. Nashruddin Khan v. Union of India wherein it was held that the time lapse is not such as to lead to the inference that the live-link between the prejudicial activity of the petitioners, which was discovered in 2019, and the object of detention, namely, to prevent them from indulging in such prejudicial activity, stood snapped.
The court while dismissing the petition noted that to justify the preventive detention of the petitioner in the assessment of the Detaining Authority, the Respondents had to collect evidence against the present petitioner, including recovering the relevant data from his mobile phone instrument, which took considerable time for reasons attributable primarily to the petitioner himself.
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