Preventive detention fails where a confession retraction is withheld from the detaining authority and seizure alone cannot sustain detention.

A preventive detention order under COFEPOSA was held invalid because the detaining authority was not supplied with the detenu's retraction of his confession before forming subjective satisfaction. The Court treated this omission as going to the root of the detention, since the retraction was material to the basis on which detention was ordered. The seizure of gold biscuits was not accepted as an independent ground sustaining the order; it formed part of the same composite foundation as the confession. On that reasoning, the detention order was liable to be quashed.

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Issues: Whether the detention order under Section 3(1) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 was vitiated because the retraction of the confessional statement was not placed before the detaining authority and the order could not be sustained on the basis of the seizure of gold biscuits alone.

Analysis: The order of detention rested on the alleged confession and the seizure of 13 gold biscuits from the detenu. The retraction of the confession before the Magistrate was not made available to the detaining authority and, therefore, was not considered while forming subjective satisfaction. The omission went to the root of the detention order. The seizure of the gold biscuits was not treated as a separate independent ground, but only as part of the same composite basis for detention.

Conclusion: The detention order was invalid and liable to be quashed.

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