Preventive detention based on pending criminal prosecutions on the same facts is invalid and denies an effective representation.

Preventive detention under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act could not be sustained where the detention grounds were based on the same facts already subject to pending criminal prosecutions in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Reliance on identical facts for both prosecution and detention rendered the order vitiated, because a preventive detention order fails if any ground is non-existent, irrelevant, or unavailable in law. The Court also found that the detenu lacked a real and effective opportunity to make a representation, since disclosure of his defence on those same facts would prejudice his pending trials. The detention order was held illegal and set aside, with consequential release.

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Issues: (i) Whether a detention order under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971 could be sustained where material grounds were founded on pending criminal prosecutions on the same facts. (ii) Whether a detenu facing such pending prosecutions had a real and effective opportunity to make a representation against the detention order.

Issue (i): Whether a detention order under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971 could be sustained where material grounds were founded on pending criminal prosecutions on the same facts.

Analysis: The grounds of detention included incidents that were already the subject of criminal proceedings pending in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The detention order was found to have been influenced by those prosecutions and to have relied on the selfsame facts as a basis for preventive detention. Where the authority chooses to proceed both by detention and by prosecution on identical facts, the detention is vitiated. In preventive detention, if one of the grounds is non-existent, irrelevant, or unavailable in law, the whole order fails because it is not possible to know whether the authority would have detained the person without that ground.

Conclusion: The detention order could not be sustained and was invalid.

Issue (ii): Whether a detenu facing such pending prosecutions had a real and effective opportunity to make a representation against the detention order.

Analysis: Because the detenu was already exposed to criminal trials on the same facts, disclosure of his defence for the purpose of a representation would prejudice him in those prosecutions. The grounds were therefore not such as to give him a proper and reasonable opportunity to make an effective representation as required in preventive detention matters.

Conclusion: The detenu did not have a proper and effective opportunity to make a representation against the order.

Final Conclusion: The detention order was held illegal and was set aside, with consequential release of the detenu.

Ratio Decidendi: A preventive detention order is invalid where it rests on grounds that are already the subject of pending criminal prosecutions on the same facts, since such reliance amounts to impermissible parallel proceedings and deprives the detenu of a real and effective opportunity to make a representation.

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