Unexplained delay in executing preventive detention can vitiate detention where immediate necessity is not shown.

Unexplained delay in executing a preventive detention order under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act can undermine the detaining authority's subjective satisfaction that immediate detention is necessary. Where the delay is inordinately long and the explanation is only a vague claim that the detenu was absconding, without details of prompt and effective steps taken to arrest him, the delay may indicate that the need for immediate detention no longer existed. On that basis, a delay of more than a year between making and execution of the order was treated as fatal to the detention.

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Issues: Whether unexplained delay in executing a preventive detention order passed under Section 3 of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 vitiates the order and the detaining authority's satisfaction.

Analysis: Preventive detention under the Act is founded on the detaining authority's satisfaction that immediate detention is necessary to prevent prejudicial activity. Where execution of the detention order is delayed for an inordinately long period without a satisfactory explanation, the delay casts doubt on the genuineness of the satisfaction and indicates that the immediate necessity for detention may not have existed. A vague assertion that the detenu was absconding, without details of prompt and effective steps taken to secure arrest, was held insufficient. The delay of more than a year between the making and execution of the order, in the absence of a proper explanation, was treated as fatal to the detention.

Conclusion: The unexplained delay vitiated the detention order and the appeal succeeded.

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