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HC sets free 62-year-old held based on detention order issued in 1993
Bombay High Court sets free a 62-year-old man who was arrested in February for a detention order issued 30 years ago due to delay in executing the order.
Strap: The division bench struck down the detention order primarily on the grounds of delay in executing the order and that no efforts were made to serve the order on the accused for three decades
MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Wednesday set free a 62-year-old Palakkad resident who had been arrested in February this year with regard to a detention order issued three decades ago – in May 1993.
The division bench struck down the detention order and ordered the Central Government to set Abdul Rasheed aka Basheer free, primarily on the grounds of delay in executing the detention order and that no efforts were made to serve the order on him for three decades.
“It is not even the case of the detaining authority that any efforts were made to trace the whereabouts of the petitioner,” said the bench of justice Revati Mohite Dere and justice Gauri Godse. “Except for visiting the available address in Mumbai, no efforts were made to trace any other address of the petitioner. The record does not reveal that any enquiry was made to find out his whereabouts. After the publication of the (detention) order in the official gazette dated February 9, 1994, no steps were taken to execute it,” the bench added.
The judges held that in the absence of possible steps taken to serve the detention order upon the petitioner, “the detaining authority was not justified in executing its order after 30 years on the ground that the petitioner was absconding. The detaining authority gives no satisfactory explanation for not executing the order of detention passed in the year 1993 for a period of 30 years.”
The detention notice had been served to Rasheed under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (COFEPOSA). Rasheed was apprehended by the Enforcement Directorate on February 28, 2023, in view of the detention order of May 17, 1993. The detention order was passed after one Umar Ibrahim Mohamad alias Mohd Sharif Hasan was apprehended at Mumbai airport on November 20, 1992, while leaving for Dubai with sizable foreign currencies concealed in his luggage. The investigation had revealed purported involvement of the Palakkad resident in smuggling foreign currency, violating provisions of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act.
Rasheed had moved the high court after the Delhi high court had on May 24 this year confirmed his detention for a period of one year (from the date of detention), primarily contending that no efforts had been made to serve the detention order upon him. HC accepted the contention and on Wednesday ordered the ED to release him immediately.
