The Supreme Court has overturned a preventive detention order against an individual accused of being a key figure in a foreign gold smuggling syndicate. The court found that the detaining authority had failed to assess whether the bail conditions imposed by a jurisdictional Magistrate were sufficient to prevent further illegal activities.
A bench comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and K. Vinod Chandran highlighted that while the detention order acknowledged the bail conditions, it did not engage with their effectiveness in restraining the accused from smuggling again. The court deemed this omission a critical flaw, even though the accused’s wife had not explicitly raised this argument in her appeal.
“When bail was granted with conditions, the detaining authority should have evaluated whether those conditions were adequate to curb further smuggling. Since the detention order fails to address this, we find it necessary to intervene,” the bench ruled.
The ruling emphasized that the issue was not whether the bail conditions were indeed sufficient but rather the failure of the detaining authority to assess their adequacy before issuing the detention order. The Supreme Court noted that after the accused was arrested, he retracted his earlier confession upon being presented before the Magistrate. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had pushed for preventive detention, citing continued smuggling risks, but the Magistrate had granted bail with specific restrictions. However, the detaining authority did not provide any reasoning as to why those restrictions were deemed inadequate.
Citing the precedent of Rameshwar Lal Patwari v. State of Bihar, the court stressed the necessity of thorough scrutiny before issuing preventive detention orders, particularly when an accused has been granted bail under conditions meant to mitigate further offenses.
As a result, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal, set aside the detention order, and ordered the immediate release of the accused if he remained in custody. The accused had been detained since March 5, 2024, following allegations of orchestrating organized smuggling activities under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities (COFEPOSA) Act. His wife had appealed to the Supreme Court after the Delhi High Court upheld his detention.
While rejecting other arguments raised by the appellant—such as claims of bias and references to a past narcotics conviction—the court remained firm that the failure to assess bail conditions was a sufficient ground to strike down the detention order.
