HC quashes Centre's detention order, says detenue wasn't told reason in Hindi

The Delhi high court Friday quashed a detention order issued by the Centre against a man allegedly involved in drug trafficking, saying the authorities miserably failed to show that the grounds of detention were communicated to him in “Hindi,” the language known to him.

The high court said simply because the detenue has put his signatures in English on the documents does not by any stretch of imagination show that he understands English and as a consequence understood the grounds of detention and relied upon documents.

A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar quashed the April 1, 2021 detention order passed by the Joint Secretary of Government of India and the June 16, 2021 order passed by the deputy secretary of government of India confirming the detention order for one year.

“In the instant case, the respondents (Union of India) have miserably failed to show that the grounds of detention and relied upon upon documents were 'communicated' to the detenue in Hindi, that is, the language known to him.

“Accordingly, the impugned detention order dated April 1, 2021, falls foul of the constitutional mandate contained in Article 22 (5) of the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court in various decisions,” the bench said.

Sharafat Sheikh, who according to the Centre was a habitual offender and allegedly involved in drug trafficking, challenged the detention order saying there was no need to detain him under the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act as he is already in custody in a case under the stringent provisions of NDPS Act.

His counsel submitted that the detenue was an illiterate person and the detention order was not properly communicated to him as the same was in the English language.

He said it was the constitutional duty of the State to serve the detention order upon the detenue in a language that he understands.

Additional solicitor general Chetan Sharma and standing counsel Ajay Digpaul, appearing for the Centre, opposed the petition and said the detenue was duly approached in Tihar Jail and the detention order along with the requisite documents were served upon him under his dated signatures wherein he has acknowledged that he has seen, read and understood the contents of the grounds of the detention.

The counsel submitted that preventive detention is devised to afford protection to society and the object is not to punish a man for having done something but to intercept such an act before it is committed.

The high court noted that there was a stamp with some inscription on each page of the relied upon documents on which the signatures of the detenue have been obtained and added that one glance on these stamped acknowledgments leaves no doubt that the signatures have been obtained in a “very casual, routine and mechanical manner”.

“There is not even a whisper in these acknowledgments obtained that the detention order/relied upon documents have been understood by the detenue in the language known to him, that is, Hindi or explained to him in vernacular,” it said.

The bench allowed the petition and said that a copy of this judgement be communicated to the detaining authority as well as to the Jail Superintendent of Central Jail, Tihar.