Preventive detention challenge before actual custody is maintainable, and stale unexplained grounds can justify quashing the order.

Article 226 permits challenge to an unserved detention order even before actual detention, because a person facing imminent illegal detention may seek writ relief and need not wait for physical custody. Preventive detention was also held unsustainable where the order rested on a solitary stale incident, the delay in passing it was unexplained, and no subsequent prejudicial activity was shown. On those grounds, the detention order was quashed.

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Issues: (i) whether a writ petition challenging an unserved detention order was maintainable when the proposed detenu was not in detention; (ii) whether the detention order was liable to be quashed on account of unexplained delay, the solitary nature of the incident, and the absence of any subsequent prejudicial activity.

Issue (i): whether a writ petition challenging an unserved detention order was maintainable when the proposed detenu was not in detention

Analysis: The power under Article 226 is of wide amplitude and is not confined to cases of actual detention. A person threatened with illegal detention may seek relief by appropriate writs, including mandamus, certiorari, or prohibition, and the High Court is not required to wait until the intended detenu is physically detained before granting relief. The remedy is extraordinary and must be exercised sparingly, but the absence of service of the detention order does not by itself bar maintainability.

Conclusion: The petition was maintainable despite non-service of the detention order and the petitioner not being in detention.

Issue (ii): whether the detention order was liable to be quashed on account of unexplained delay, the solitary nature of the incident, and the absence of any subsequent prejudicial activity

Analysis: The detention order was founded on a single incident that had occurred years earlier, and the delay in passing the order was not satisfactorily explained. The material did not show any later activity by the petitioner justifying preventive detention, and the grounds were materially the same as those in the connected matter where the detention order had already been struck down. Preventive detention cannot be sustained on stale and unexplained grounds where the basis for apprehended prejudicial conduct is absent.

Conclusion: The detention order was not sustainable and was quashed.

Final Conclusion: The Court upheld the availability of writ relief against an unserved detention order and set aside the impugned preventive detention on merits.

Ratio Decidendi: Under Article 226, a High Court may quash an illegal or imminent detention order even before actual detention, and preventive detention cannot be sustained where the grounds are stale, the delay is unexplained, and no subsequent prejudicial activity is shown.

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