Mumbai, Feb 13 (PTI): The Bombay high court has quashed an order of Solapur Police Commissioner detaining a man under provisions of Prevention of Black Marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act for allegedly indulging in selling blue kerosene in the black market.
The court opined that the detention order was illegal because vital documents were not considered by the detaining authority while passing the impugned order.
Hearing a petition filed by Ismail Nasruddin Shaikh, who was detained under the Act by an order of police chief on October 14 last year, justices OA Oka and AP Bhangale observed that the report of chemical analyser about the blue kerosene seized from the detenue was not placed before the detaining authority for consideration.
"The allegation against the petitioner is of illegally marketing the blue kerosene. Whether the liquid seized from the petitioner was blue kerosene or not could have been decided only by an expert and, therefore, a report of the expert on the chemical analysis was certainly a vital document in the facts of the present case".
If the detaining authority is of the opinion that it is necessary to detain a person under the Act to prevent him from indulging in sale of goods dangerous for people, the same should be based on some material and the copies of such material should be given to the detenu.
As the report of the chemical analyser would have been a very vital document, non-placement of the said report before the detaining authority in the facts of the case vitiates the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority, the judges noted.
The authorities had seized from the petitioner three plastic drums out of which two drums allegedly contained 35 liters of blue kerosene and third one allegedly contained 15 liters of blue kerosene.
It was submitted that a sample of small quantity was drawn from the seized liquid. The report of chemical analyser was not placed before the detaining authority and report of Forensic Science Laboratory was not even obtained.