TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1989 (4) TMI 177
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....Joint Secretary, Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue), Government of India, New Delhi under Section 3(1) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (hereinafter referred as the 'Act') with a view to preventing the appellant from indulging in activities prejudicial to the augmentation of country's foreign exchange resources. 2. The detaining authority on the material placed before him arrived to a conclusion that the detenu (appellant) was indulging in receiving and making payments in India unauthorisedly under instructions from a person residing abroad in violation of the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Regulations Act, 1973 and reached his subjective satisfaction that the said unauth....
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....ived in the COFEPOSA Section of Ministry of Finance on June 27,1988 and that after receiving the comments from the sponsoring authority on 11-7-1988 the file was forwarded to Central Government. Meanwhile the representation forwarded to the detaining authority was rejected on 11-7-1988 itself. The said file was received in the office of the Minister of State (Revenue) on 12-7-1988 but the Minister of State was on tour and on his return the representation was forwarded to the Finance Minister on 17-7-1988 and the file was received back in COFEPOSA Section on 19-7-1988 and the order of rejection was communicated to the detenu who received it on 26th July, 1988. This explanation has been accepted by the High Court. The learned Counsel for the ....
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....nt at his pleasure on 22-6-1988. This Superintendent of Central Prison has not given any satisfactory and convincing explanation as why he had kept the representation with himself except saying that during the period of 7 days there was a Sunday. 4. This Court in Abdul Karim and Others v. Stale of West Bengal 1969 (1) SCC 488 held : "The right of representation under Article 22(5) is a valuable constitutional right and is not a mere formality." This view was reiterated in Rashid SK. v. Slate of West Bengal 1973 (3) SCC 476 while dealing with the constitutional requirement of expeditious consideration of the petitioner's representation by the Government as spE.L.T. out from Article 22(5) of the Constitution observing thus : "The ultimate....
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....ed by a series of decisions of this Court that a representation should be considered with reasonable expedition, it is imperative on the part of every authority, whether in merely transmitting or dealing with it, to discharge that obligation with all reasonable promptness and diligence without giving room for any complaint of remissness, indifference or avoidable delay because the delay, caused by slackness on the part of any authority, will ultimately result in the delay of the disposal of the representation which in turn may invalidate the order of detention as having infringed the mandate of Article 22(5) of the Constitution. 7. A contention similar to one pressed before us was examined by this Court in Vijay Kumar's case (supra) wherei....
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....not the detaining authority, of necessity the State Government must gear up its own machinery to see that in these cases the representation reaches the Government as quickly as possible and it is considered by the authorities with equal promptitude. Any slackness in this behalf not properly explained would be denial of the protection conferred by the statute and would result in invalidation of the order." 8. Reverting to the instant case, we hold that the above observation in Vijay Kumar's case will squarely be applicable to the facts herein. Indisputably the Superintendent of Central Prison of Bombay to whom the representation was handed over by the detenu on 16-6-1988 for mere onward transmission to the Central Government had callously i....