1982 (8) TMI 56

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....es Act, 1974 (COFEPOSA hereafter) and order (Annexure-A) was passed by respondent No. 1 on 15th June, 1982 for detention of Sajianlal. This order along with grounds of detention was served on the detenu on 19th June, 1982. The grounds were as under :- (1) that you are engaged in smuggling by way of keeping and dealing in smuggled goods; and (2) that to prevent you from doing so it is necessary to detain you. A Schedule was annexed with the order setting out the particulars on the basis of which the order was passed. Relevant particulars are as follows :- (i) The detenue was running a shop named College Watch and Radio Service at Mandsaur and had been a dealer of "notified goods" as notified by the Government of India under Secti....

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.... and preventive action under COFEPOSA was unnecessary and unwarranted. 4. Learned Deputy Government Advocate Shri Kulshreshtra in reply contended that the past activities of the detenu were rightly taken into consideration for forming the subjective satisfaction required under Section 3(1) of the Act entitling the concerned authority to order detention. Shri Kulshreshtra submitted that till the year 1981 the detenu was a dealer in goods declared as "notified goods" under the Customs Act and was very well aware of the provisions of the said Act. In 1981 he intimated the Central Excise Department that he did not want to continue as a dealer in notified goods. Yet when the search party raided and searched his shop and the residential premis....

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....oreign and notified goods subsequently without any satisfactory explanation about their acquisition was for sale. Such a satisfaction, on facts, permitted the concerned authority to invoke the power to detention under Section 3(1) of the COFEPOSA. 6. As regards the second argument that prosecution for this solitary act was the only appropriate action to be taken by the concerned authorities and preventive detention was not necessary, we may refer to the following observations in Hemlata v. State of Maharashtra (A.I.R. 1982 S.C. 8) :- "The rule laid down is that a prosecution or the absence of it is not an absolute, bar to an order of preventive detention; the authority may prosecute the offender for an isolated act or acts of an of....