Automatic revocation of detention excluded the forfeiture statute, leaving no jurisdiction to forfeit property.

Preventive detention laws are to be strictly construed where they affect personal or property rights. Where the appropriate Government does not obtain the Advisory Board's opinion and does not take the statutory step of confirming or revoking detention, the detention is treated as having terminated or revoked by operation of law. Read with the exclusionary proviso to the forfeiture statute, such automatic revocation falls within the category of revocation that excludes the detained person from the Act's reach. On that basis, the forfeiture proceedings could not be sustained and the Competent Authority lacked jurisdiction to forfeit the properties.

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Issues: Whether the detention order, in the absence of reference to and opinion of the Advisory Board, stood automatically revoked so as to exclude the appellant from the scope of the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act, 1976 and render the forfeiture order without jurisdiction.

Analysis: The Tribunal applied the principle that preventive detention laws must be strictly construed where they encroach upon personal or property rights. It relied on the settled rule that where the appropriate Government does not obtain the Advisory Board's opinion and does not take the statutory step of confirming or revoking detention, the detention does not lawfully continue and stands terminated or revoked by operation of law. The Tribunal held that, although the detenu had died soon after detention and no reference to the Advisory Board had been made, the subsequent forfeiture proceedings under the forfeiture statute could not proceed unless the detention fell within the statutory category attracting that Act. Reading the proviso to section 2(2) of the forfeiture statute with the detention provisions, the Tribunal concluded that automatic revocation is to be treated as revocation within the meaning of the exclusionary proviso.

Conclusion: The detention order stood automatically revoked, the forfeiture statute did not apply, and the Competent Authority had no jurisdiction to forfeit the properties.

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