Preventive detention fairness requires comparable assistance for the detenu when the State appears with departmental officers.

In preventive detention proceedings before the Advisory Board, fairness and equality required comparable assistance to the detenu where the State was aided by departmental officers acting as legal advisers. Although there was no absolute right to legal representation, refusal to allow a suitable friend to assist the detenu was unjustified when the detaining authority had such assistance. The term "friend" was construed broadly to include a person capable of helping in the defence, not only someone personally known to the detenu. The denial of that assistance rendered the continued detention invalid and the detenu was entitled to release.

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Issues: Whether the detenu was entitled, in Advisory Board proceedings under the preventive detention law, to be assisted by a friend when the detaining authority was represented by departmental officers, and whether refusal of such assistance vitiated the detention.

Analysis: The proceedings before the Advisory Board required fair observance of the statutory and constitutional safeguards governing preventive detention. While the detenu had no absolute right to be represented by a legal practitioner, the denial of assistance had to be considered in the light of the assistance afforded to the detaining authority. Where departmental officers versed in the relevant facts and law assisted the State, the Board could not, consistently with equality and fairness, refuse comparable assistance to the detenu through a friend capable of helping him. The expression "friend" in this context was not confined to a person known personally to the detenu, but extended to a person able to assist in the defence.

Conclusion: The refusal to permit the detenu to be assisted by Sundararajan as a friend was unjustified and rendered the continued detention invalid.

Final Conclusion: The detention order could not survive and the detenu was entitled to immediate release.

Ratio Decidendi: If the detaining authority is assisted before the Advisory Board by officers who effectively act as legal advisers, fairness and equality require that the detenu be allowed comparable assistance by a suitable friend, even though he has no absolute right to legal representation.

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