Preventive externment requires a real public-order menace and proportionate restraint; prior convictions alone are insufficient.

Externment under Section 57(1) of the Bombay Police Act is a preventive power that can be used only on a fair and informed application of mind. The authority must consider more than prior convictions and must assess whether the person's conduct has made him a real menace to public order or public interest, and whether removal is a reasonable and proportionate restraint within Article 19(5). On the record described, the order failed because it treated the matter as one of drinking convictions and did not address the larger public-order requirement; later justifications could not cure that defect, so the externment order was unsustainable.

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Issues: Whether the externment order passed under Section 57(1) of the Bombay Police Act, 1951 was valid when the authority considered only the previous convictions and did not examine whether the petitioner had become a menace to public order or public interest so as to justify restriction on movement and residence under Article 19(1)(d) and Article 19(1)(e) read with Article 19(5) of the Constitution of India.

Analysis: The power of externment under Section 57 is preventive and can be exercised only on guided discretion. The existence of the statutory conditions is not enough by itself; the authority must also apply its mind to whether, in the facts of the particular case, the person's activities have reached such a degree that removal is necessary in the interest of the general public. The constitutional saving in Article 19(5) requires the restriction to be reasonable, commensurate with the evil sought to be prevented, and confined to cases where ordinary preventive measures are insufficient. The record showed that the authority treated the matter as one of prior convictions for drinking offences and did not address the larger question whether the petitioner had become a public menace or whether the even tempo of the locality was disturbed. The later attempt to justify the order on additional allegations was treated as an afterthought and could not cure the absence of proper application of mind in the impugned order.

Conclusion: The externment order was ultra vires and could not be sustained.

Final Conclusion: The restriction imposed on the petitioner's liberty failed the constitutional test of reasonable restraint and was quashed for want of proper consideration of the statutory and public-interest requirements.

Ratio Decidendi: An externment order under a preventive statute is valid only if the authority, on a fair and informed application of mind, concludes that the person's conduct has made him a real menace to public order or public interest and that the restriction is a reasonable and proportionate measure within the constitutional limits of Article 19(5).

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