Preventive detention safeguards require equal representation and placement of detenue submissions before the Advisory Board.

Denial of legal representation to detenues before the Advisory Board, while the detaining side was represented by counsel, was treated as unequal treatment in the detention review process and therefore unjustified. The failure to place the detenues' further representation before the Advisory Board, even on a stated ground of late receipt, deprived them of meaningful consideration of their case and breached the safeguards governing preventive detention. On these grounds, the continued detention was held unsustainable and the detention orders were quashed for non-compliance with constitutional and statutory protections.

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Issues: (i) Whether denial of legal representation to the detenues before the Advisory Board, when the respondents were represented through counsel, violated equality and fair treatment; (ii) whether non-placement of the detenues' representation before the Advisory Board vitiated the continued detention.

Issue (i): Whether denial of legal representation to the detenues before the Advisory Board, when the respondents were represented through counsel, violated equality and fair treatment.

Analysis: The detenues had earlier sought permission to be represented through counsel, but that request had been rejected. A later communication from the detenues could not be treated as an accepted permission to appear through counsel. The record also showed that the respondents were represented through an advocate before the Advisory Board. In these circumstances, parity in representation became relevant, and denial of such parity amounted to unequal treatment in the detention review process.

Conclusion: The denial of legal representation to the detenues before the Advisory Board was not justified and was in violation of equality.

Issue (ii): Whether non-placement of the detenues' representation before the Advisory Board vitiated the continued detention.

Analysis: The detenues had submitted a further representation, but it was not placed before the Advisory Board on the stated ground of late receipt. Since the Advisory Board is required to consider the detenue's representation in the preventive detention process, failure to place the representation before it deprived the detenues of meaningful consideration of their case. This defect affected the legality of the detention proceedings and the safeguards attached to preventive detention.

Conclusion: The omission to place the representation before the Advisory Board vitiated the detention and rendered the continued detention unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The preventive detention orders could not be sustained and were quashed for breach of the constitutional and statutory safeguards governing reference to and consideration by the Advisory Board.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the detention review process under preventive detention law is conducted without equal opportunity of representation and without due consideration of the detenue's representation by the Advisory Board, the detention becomes unlawful and liable to be quashed.

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